Iran crackdowns on women's underwear [and everything else]

[democratic]

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/08/28/1093518169843.html?oneclick=true

Window shoppers in Iran will no longer have the pleasure of looking at women's underwear or buying a variety of pets, according to new police rules reported yesterday..

According to the student news agency ISNA, shops have been barred from displaying lingerie in their windows - with the display ban also applying to "unveiled mannequins with noticeable curves".

In addition, men have also been banned from employment as salesmen in women's underwear stores - with offending shopowners facing the loss of their licenses.

In other measures reported by ISNA, commercial centres and restaurants have also been told not to keep or sell dogs, pigs and monkeys - animals that are considered in Islam to be unclean.

The measures are contained in a new manual for police, ISNA said. Another rule includes women being banned from taking driving lessons with male instructors unless they are accompanied by an immediate male relative.

ISNA also quoted a senior police official as saying that all clothes stores will be searched for hidden cameras and see-through mirrors in their fitting rooms following complaints from citizens.

The report comes amid a general crackdown on women deemed to be "badly veiled", which has seen police in the capital Tehran and other cities round up hundreds of women sporting flimsy headscarves, three-quarter-length trousers and shape-revealing coats.

Random crackdowns on restaurants, coffee shops and shopping centres are common in the Islamic Republic, especially in the hot summer months, but the latest measures appear to be more determined and are seen as a reflection of the recent shift to the right within the regime.

[Radius]

1. Closing the valve

on the pressure cooker. The mullahs can only push so far..

But at least it isn't detailing the killing of a 16 year old for having a "sharp tounge".

[bluestateguy]

2. It's a medieval society, but some will use that as justification for war

American boys should never be forced to fight a war to overthrow the Iranian ayatollahs. That is the job of Iranian boys.

[Radius]

3. Agree, Sex, Drugs and Rock and roll will go along way(NT)

[JohnOneillsMemory]

15. Another Beatles invasion is in order. That's what ripped the Iron Curtain.

Sex vs. Violence again.

Religious zealots have an instinctive feel for the power of culture forces in maintaining the status quo. Sexuality is the strongest antidote for and threat to the death and violence that old men use to terrorize young people. They maintain the status quo by keeping the human animal in the equivalent of veal pens for the libido and life force.

That's why the American fundies are so vigilant against any affirmation of homosexuality. There are so few levers to separate humans from the biggest pleasure unregulated by the powerful-sex.

The Fundies were so afraid of the unleashed sexual energy affecting their children in the 50s and 60s that they were sure Rock and Roll was an invention of the Devil, Communism, and the political enemies of the American power structure (same thing to them.)

Ironically, it was rock and roll that helped make the youth behind the Iron Curtain reject Communist totalitarianism.

American youth need only be shown carefully hidden American totalitarianism for them to reject it.

Perhaps we should ship millions of Wham-o Hoola Hoops to everyone suffering under theocracy to loosen up their hips.

Free your ass and your mind will follow.

[stilpist]

4. Sex-obsessed

Dirty minded people so afraid of their own desires that they project their obsession onto everyone else.

Reminds me of the sex-obsessed nuns that taught me in gradeschool.

[ksatriyakiller]

11. yes, persian people are hippocrites

they pretend to be conservative but deep down they are not. give them the choice and they will be worse than america.

[stilpist]

18. Hypocrite isn't the word I'd use.

And I certainly don't think that the phenomenon is unique to or universal in Persians. I do think that many (most? all?) conservatives have repressed their sexual desires and that the repression has something to do with their being conservative. To me, "hypocrite" would imply a more conscious disparity between professed belief and actions.

I'm not a psychologist so I may not be saying what I mean very accurately.

[havocmom]

5. Well that does it! We have to invade for the good of the Playtex Corp.

Ah, you know to protect all those little investors and all, yeah, that's the ticket! War against the spandex hating mullahs! We must bring them democracy, bad reality TV shows, and bras! </sacarsm>

:eyes:

[Baclava]

6. So many jokes...

...so little time...

"shoppers in Iran will no longer have the PLEASURE of looking at women's underwear"...

"crackdown on women deemed to be "badly veiled"...

"cities round up hundreds of women sporting flimsy headscarves"

[Algorem]

7. they been wearing them crackup?How they do that?

[jmowreader]

8. I like the crackdown on two-way mirrors in the fitting rooms

A lot of this is just the same-o, same-o fundie crap Iran is famous for, but they haven't become really extreme yet: so far, women can still drive and if the Taliban were running that place, they would have already nullified all of the women's driver's licenses.

[MrPrax]

28. Yeah Not All Bad...

Doing random searches of clothing stores/motels/bathrooms for cams and two-way mirrors is not all a bad thing...

We should be doing that actually given the proliferation of this type of technology...hate to think that because my daughter tried on a blouse, she would end up on some net site catering to this crap..

Does this make me a fundie? ;-)

[mitchtv]

9. What , is there another Bush brother running Iran?

and please no talk of invasion til after Labor day.

[starroute]

10. Cultural upheaval brewing in Iran

I'm not sure I could find it again, but I read a piece a week or two ago saying that young Iranians have lost all faith in political reforms and are just trying to raise hell instead -- sex, booze, tobacco, and t-shirts that say (in English) "I do bad things."

The more the mullahs try to crack down, the more explosive things are going to get.

[Baclava]

13. True

Sounds to me like the country as a whole could use a little nooky and a stiff drink.

[smirkymonkey]

29. Good, sounds like the Iranians need to take their

country back from repressive fundamentalists just like we do here in the US.

And WE do not have to bring them Democracy, the people of Iran need to be self-determined - we've all what "freedom", compliments of the US governmentlooks like in Iraq. If we attack or interfere, we are just subverting that natural process and will be creating more problems than we would be "solving."

[barb162]

12. was it better under the shah or the mullahs

there was another topic elsewhere on how the US supports dictators. Which of course is not right. But for some reason in the middle east there seems to be dictators or forced Islam (mullahs) shoved down people's throats like above. Other than Turkey, which has had a lot of western influence for centuries, I can't think of any middle east islamic country that has elected governments.

I cannot deal with the sexism of islamic men! The part about being "badly veiled" just makes me want to slug these jerks.

[Vladimir]

16. The shah was a nasty piece of work

the below seems a decent enough summary of the Shah's security forces.

http://www.fas.org/irp/world/iran/savak/

PS I know many many muslims who are not in the least sexist, and plenty of christians who are mysogenist pigs. This sort of thing is no-one's exclusive property...

[DemocratSinceBirth]

20. The Shah Was An Authoritarian Leader...

The mullahs are totalitarian leaders...


I prefer to live in a liberal democracy but I would prefer the Shah's Iran to the Ayatollah's Iran.....

[Vladimir]

22. You might but it is questionable which the Iranians would pick...

Please note first of all that as a communist, I would prefer none of the above. Nontheless, between the shah and the mullahs, things are not so clear cut. After all, the revolution that overthrew the shah was a popular one (and, if my history does not fail me, the students were all for the mullahs back then), hence there must have been wide segments of the population which felt that they could do better with the mullahs. I suspect that the mullahs still retain a significant base of support within Iran, much as this may seem illogical to us...

[DemocratSinceBirth]

23. The Shah Was A Garden Variety Dictator

like Torillos, Somoza, Marcos, Batista, et cetera...


If you were apolitical you were free to do as you want..


I had Iranian friends in grad school during the Revolution... They initially were gung ho for the Revolution but came to loathe and fear Khomenei....

[Vladimir]

25. The problem with the garden-variety dictators

is that they tend to provide badly for the poor in society, and make their condition untenable. And when you are starving, being apolitical is by definition impossible...

I am sure that your friends did come to loathe Khomeini - there was much to loathe. But all the same, I doubt this regime would have lasted for 25 years through several changes of leadership were it not for a reasonable level of support in the country. Of course this support seems now to be crumbling and that is all good... sadly I doubt a progressive government will replace it, but then this is none of our business anyway (or rather it shouldn't be, since I have no doubt that the US will take considerbale interest in what replaces the mullahs).

[Lydia Leftcoast]

24. The problem was that the Shah (who was put in power by the U.S.)

killed or exiled all his moderate opponents, so by 1979, the only opposition leaders remaining were the mullahs.

[Vladimir]

26. Its an interesting exibition of the law of unintended consequences n/t

[barb162]

32. I think the non religious dictators

like the shah, are better than the religious dictators, like the mullahs.

These mullahs on street corners deciding whose scarf is too thin are like the thought police, dress police, religious police, etc. With the non-religious dictators at least, as long as you don't do political things to get on their nerves, like anti-regime newspapers, I think they pretty much leave you alone.

[Domitan]

14. Iran's Falwell and Robertson clones need to go down

but let it be done by the progressive-minded Iranians, not by the hand of the USA government with its imperialist aims.

[Vladimir]

17. Things are certainly getting interesting

I wonder when the steam will send the lid flying, in Iran and elsewhere...

[cease_fire]

19. Curious....

This cultural behavior has been part and parcel of Iran for years...

I wonder why were just starting to hear about this now...

Hmmmm??????

This administration is taking every play straight out of a Tom Clancy Novel - First, expose the culture, then fuel the sympathy, then, show an unwarranted execution of make hay out of a policy that's been around (out of the mainstream) for years...

Then, bomb them.

Same shit, different regime.

[progressivebydesign]

21. What next? Ripping babies from incubators??

Gawd.. is everyone in the world so clueless as to NOT see what the focus on Iran's miserable conditions lately, means?? hello?? The plan is for PNAC to FREE the poor Iranians! Do they have WMD, too? Sheesh. It's so freakin' obvious.

[jmowreader]

34. They really DO have WMD!

They also have an army, two things of which Saddam was blissfully innocent.

If we invade Iran (or North Korea) we're gonna get fucked so bad....

[Vladimir]

36. Can you spell quagmire?

if the US attacks NK, and they have a decent delivery system for its nuke, we can wave Tokyo buh-bye...

[VirginiaDem]

39. The US isn't going to attack NK...

for the exact reasons you mention. It is not an option.

[Vladimir]

40. I agree with you that its not an option

the lesson for the thrid world to learn:

Get the nuke, because once you have it, they can't touch you.

Well done George, well done.

[VirginiaDem]

41. You're right. Here's the depressing part...

I was just reading something about this. The Middle East is the main region where the logic of nuclear proliferation is stronger than ever and, no matter what any president wants to do about it, in the globalizing world nukes are going to get easier and easier to acquire. This would be true under any president but the axis of evil speech definitely ramped up the so-called security dilemma in the Mideast.

[Vladimir]

42. Its strong in the Middle East because Israel already has the nuke

hence everybody else gets pushed into trying to level the playing field. Non that Israel disarming its nukes would do any good now, I think its too late to stop the development cycle.

[VirginiaDem]

43. Israel got them for a reason...

they didn't invent the security dilemma. And in fact, Israel's open-secret acquisition of nukes was in response to a very real threat. But, yeah, once they got them it increased everybody's else's perceived need for them.

[VirginiaDem]

44. Just anticipating strong responses here....

I don't intend to justify nuclear proliferation. I'm just trying to argue why it happens and how it can snowball. I'd love for the ME to be nuke-free someday but I'm not sure how we're going to get there from here.

[TheWraith]

27. The Iranian government desperately needs a smackdown.

As horrible as it is for all the innocents who are hurt in the process, I think we need to take extreme measures.

It's time to start air-dropping Britney Spears CDs.

[VirginiaDem]

37. As much as I don't like Bush...

and much as I may get attacked here, Bush is not about to attack Iran for a comination of reasons, most of which attest to the continuing applicability of realism in geopolitics:

First, the economic aspect of the Islamic experiment isn't working. Iranian citizens who were initially attracted to an Islamic economic system which would put justice and equality on the front burner are no longer supportive. For whatever reasons, it hasn't worked.

Second, and relatedly, the Iranian youth is massively against the regime. This allows for enormous internal pressure on the mullahs. Cracking down, a la the above underwear hubbub only makes them less popular. Easing up only makes them more vulnerable to protest and the like.

Third, the Iranians have a strong nationalist identity. Probably the only thing they would support the Mullahs on would be a defense against their country.

Fourth, the US military is stretched and spent. There is nothing more to give and everybody knows it.

Fifth, if and when the Iranians get to the nuclear breaking point, Israel would likely take it out. The US could publicly tisk-tisk the Israelis while privately dancing a jig.

[Astarho]

30. The Mullahs are getting desperate

Desperately trying to hold onto what they have. Half of Iran's population is under 30.

It's only a matter of time.

[DaveSZ]

31. If the Fundies hold power in Washington

that's the way it will be here soon.

[Moderator]

33. democratic44

Per DU copyright rules
please post only four
paragraphs from the
copyrighted news source.

Thank you.

DU Moderator

[Piperay]

35. That's all the excuse that chimp

is going to need to start messing around in Iran, look for that to happen in October. x(

[LiberalBushFan]

38. John Ashcroft wants to know

did they make sure to cover up statues with breasts as well?

[ksatriyakiller]

45. persian women are fine

so it's a shame thisis happening.

[VirginiaDem]

46. as for the animal restrictions...

"In other measures reported by ISNA, commercial centres and restaurants have also been told not to keep or sell dogs, pigs and monkeys - animals that are considered in Islam to be unclean."

Don't know about the monkeys and the pigs, but talk about a rule that was made (and will) be broken! No dogs! This is getting into Taliban-kite territory. The mullahs' response to a public that is increasingly disenchanted with religious slavery (and enchanted with all things western) is to outlaw dogs.

[rednek_Liberal]

47. Heh, just wait until we Liberate them and Introduce Crack

Think they have problems now... LOL