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Iran Focus
 Tehran, Iran,
Jan. 04 – In the latest “acid attack” by radical Islamists on young women accused
of ignoring the country’s strict dress regulations, two female university
students had acid splashed on their faces in the town of Shahroud, north-eastern Iran.
The two women, aged 21 and 22, study geography in Shahroud’s
Open University. Unidentified assailants travelling
on a motorbike moved next to them in Ferdowsi Street
and threw acid on their faces as they were walking. The attackers
immediately left the scene and have not been arrested.
Radical Islamists operating under the umbrella of the paramilitary Bassij force and Ansar-e
Hezbollah have stepped up their campaign against the “mal-veiling” of women
and girls since the election of hard-line President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad. The Iranian President regularly
addresses meetings of these Islamic vigilantes and praises their efforts
“to purify the Islamic Republic of the vestiges of corrupt Western
culture”.
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