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Reuters
 TEHRAN - Female civil servants at Iran's Culture Ministry and female journalists at the state newspaper and news agency must be out of the office by dusk to be with their
families, a directive said on Tuesday.
The directive was issued by Culture
Minister Mohammad Hossein Saffar-Harandi,
one of a batch of hardline cabinet ministers brought in by President Mahmoud Ahamdinejad who won a landslide
election in June.
"Owing to the
sensitive role of women
in the family and in raising children, women employees are banned from staying at the office after 6 p.m.," the Tosea newspaper
quoted the directive as saying.
The order to get home early also covers the official IRNA news agency and the state-run Iran daily newspaper.
The directive did not specify
what punishments women would face if they disobeyed
the decree.
Shirin Ebadi, Iran's 2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner, said the decree
was blatantly discriminatory.
"Women should be free to adjust their working hours based on their pace of life," the human
rights lawyer told Reuters.
One woman reporter believed it was part of a plan by Ahmadinejad's government to
turn the clock back on the tentative progress made under moderate former President Mohammad Khatami.
Under eight years of Khatami's presidency, enforcement of social restrictions such as Islamic dress codes for women
were relaxed. Women entered previously male-only domains such as taxi driving and the police.
"It is just a
start. They will put more limitations on women. They do not want us
to be socially active," said a female journalist, who asked not
to be named. She works night
shifts at the Iran newspaper. "What about me? I start working at 3 p.m. This decree means that I will be jobless soon."
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