ISLAMIC REPUBLIC INTRODUCES HARSH TALEBAN-LIKE MEASURES
TEHRAN 19 Aug (IPS) In a move that would certainly delight – and strengthens – the Taleban that rule over neighbouring Afghanistan, Iranian clerical authorities stepped up further the "talebanisation" of the regime by announcing a new stiff campaign of "moral cleansing" of the society, ordering the Law Enforcement Forces (LEF) and Basij volunteers to "remove and destroy" everything they consider as "signs and symbols of depravation", from music to the display of "provocative" manikins in shop windows.
Following the decision, taken by the Judiciary on orders from the fundamentalist leader Ayatollah Ali Khameneh’i, Police issued Saturday a nation-wide order forbidding restaurants and shops from serving women not wearing strict Islamic dress, or hejab, stores from selling T-shirts emblazoned with movie stars, and men from going to work in neckties - a symbol of Western decadence.
The LEF, like all other military institutions of the Islamic Republic is under the control of the leader and do not depend on the Interior Ministry.
The order was the latest measure by the hard-line judiciary to crack down on so-called "social vices" in a campaign that reformists say aims to undermine President Mohammad Khatami's efforts to ease Islamic regulations on public dress and behaviour and normalise with the world outside.
The head of the nation's conservative-led judiciary, the Iraqi-born Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi-Shahroudi, last week warned against the expansion of "depravation, notably among the youth", and said people were "delighted" at the public hanging, flogging and stoning of those not respecting Islamic values.
As a result, public floggings have increased with dozens of people lashed for drinking alcohol, harassing women and having illicit sex.
The campaign, named "Project Secure Society" and which will start from today, Sunday, will involve a vast operation to remove the "signs and symbols of depravation" from public places, notably the shops and public places of Tehran and create "an environment conform to sacred Islamic Shari’a", according to a police statement carried by state radio.
Owners of boutiques, restaurants and other public establishments, will be punished and their businesses shut in case they serve women not respecting hejab, production, distribution, purchase or sale of any object carrying markings that are "depraved and contrary to sexual modesty", like T-shirts displaying pictures of movie and music stars as well as displaying, selling or buying their posters; displaying women underwear in shops windows; selling or buying paintings considered by the LEF as "depraved"; airing of "unauthorised" music in shops and cars; airing of sounds considered as "noise pollution"; sale of "depraved" recordings; sale or carrying of dogs; sale of cats and monkeys in shops and mandatory presence of a close male relative for women learning driving are among activities being forbidden, according to the Project.
Political analysts and observers immediately voiced concern, agreeing that the measures would "bounce back" against the regime, make the bulk of the people, mostly youngsters, to stand up to the authorities.
By enforcing the measures, the regime increases the number of opponents in the lower classes, turn the silent majority into a major political forces opposed to the regime and this means serious danger for the future of the ruling clerical power", commented a well-known journalist in Tehran who asked not disclose his name.
Mr. Mehdi Khalaji, a Paris-based political analyst and independent journalist said the bans means the rulers feels they are in danger and their regime is shaky.
He said implementation of the measures would produce results completely the reverse of what the authorities expects.
"After twenty years of constant propaganda, imposition of harsh measures under the yoke of velayat faqih, or guardianship, what we see is that even in an austere and unpleasant city like Qom – considered as the cradle of militant Shi’a Islam-- the youngsters have turned their back to religious restrictions, tend to live like their keens in other places in the world", he told the Persian service of the BBC.
Earlier this month, police in the holy city of Qom announced the begin of a war against what they called "flagrant manifestations of corruption", "moral decadence" and "social corruption."
"Regarding the spread of decadent western culture in society, police have seriously risen up against the propagators of corruption", the LEF said in a statement carried by the official IRNA news agency.
The steep rise in public floggings in Tehran has sparked a new political dispute between the conservatives-controlled Judiciary and the reformists-dominated Majles, the Iranian parliament.
"These floggings, instead of making victims repentant, increase public sympathy for them, aside from being contrary to the Islamic objective of imposing lashes," the deputy interior minister for political affairs, Mohammad-Javad Haqshenas, told IRNA.
High-ranking clerics also condemned the public flogging and hangings, saying it harmed the images of both the nation and Islam.
"There is no law in Iran that prohibits displaying and wearing necktie or selling dogs or refusing food to women in makeup. They are imposing their own interpretations of Islamic rules as law'', Karim Arqandehpour, the deputy head of the Press Guild Association told the Associated Press.
Arqandehpour said the move violates "the spirit of Khatami's reform program, which has been endorsed several times by a majority of Iranians''.
The move comes less than a week after the embattled President Khatami pledged to continue his popular campaign for greater social and political freedoms.
But his efforts have been thwarted on every corner by hard-liners, who fear such changes could erode their enormous influence over nearly every aspect of life.
The new campaign would certainly put more pressure on the President, increase the growing gap between him and his constituency at home and add to Iran’s isolatation in the world, analysts said. ENDS IRAN TALEBANISATION 19801