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Iran Focus
 Tehran, Iran, Aug. 20 – The
man designated by Iran’s hard-line
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
as his Minister of Justice vowed on Saturday that “improperly-veiled women”
will be treated as if they had no Islamic veil at all.
Jamal Karimi-Rad told the local press, “Being
improperly veiled and not wearing a veil are no different. When it is clear
from the appearance of a woman that she has violated the law, then the
crime is obvious and law enforcement agents can take legal measures against
her”.
“Crimes such as mal-veiling or other prohibited acts, which happen before
the eyes of a law enforcement agent, are evident crimes and must be dealt
with in accordance with the law”, Karimi-Rad
said.
Karimi-Rad also made it clear that members of the
para-military Bassij
and the notorious Ansar-e Hizbollah,
government-organised gangs of hooligans, are
regarded as law enforcement agents in clergy-ruled Iran.
Women have been facing a harsher crackdown since the June elections that
led to Ahmadinejad’s presidency.
In July, Iran deployed
squads of women-only vice police to clamp down on “un-Islamic” dress. The
semi-official Jomhouri Islami
recently reported that women have been arrested in Iran for
“disrespecting Islamic virtues and for having repulsive and immoral
attire”.
With the arrival of a top commander of Iran’s
Revolutionary Guards as the country’s new police chief, a new summer-long
crackdown on “social vice” in Tehran was launched
targeting young women.
State-run news agencies reported that “mal-veiled or unveiled individuals
inside and outside of cars” would be the target of arrests by Iran’s State
Security Forces, the paramilitary police force. The police would also
embark on a systematic clampdown on “shops and public places where public
chastity and Islamic values are ignored”.
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