Iran Cracking Down!

I guess they think they can't trust people to make decisions for themselves, they must tell them how to dress, how to have their hair cut, and even what to text each other!

50 women barred from boarding flights over un-Islamic dress

Tehran: Iranian police have prevented 50 women from boarding flights in their ongoing crackdown on dress styles deemed to be out of line with Islamic dress rules, officials said yesterday.

"Fifty badly-veiled women were prevented from boarding domestic and international flights for failing to respect Islamic dress rules," said the head of airport police Mamoud Bot-Shekane, according to the Fars news agency.

So they're not only telling them what to wear in Iran, but in other countries as well. Do they think they are going to obey them once they leave the country?

Now Iran bans Western Hairstyles.

Tehran: Iranian police have warned barbers against offering Western-style hair cuts or plucking the eyebrows of their male customers, Iranian media said on Sunday.

The report by a reformist daily, later confirmed by an Iranian news agency, appeared to be another sign of the authorities cracking down on clothing and other fashion deemed to be against Islamic values...

Iranian young men have in recent years started paying more attention to the way they look and dress, especially in affluent parts of the capital Tehran. Spiked up hair, by using gel, is known as the khorusi (rooster) style and some also use make-up...

Barbers who do not follow these rules might be closed down for a month and even lose their permits to operate, Etemad quoted him as saying...

"Currently some barber shops apply make-up and use hair styles that are in line with those in European countries and America," Eftekharifard said.

He added: "An official order has been sent to the union ... not to apply make-up on men's faces (or) do eyebrows ... and hence the barbers are not allowed to do these things."

Oh no, we must not have men with plucked eyebrows or makeup, that's a sure-fire way to go to hell! They must be MANLY men!

Iran to Filter Immoral Mobile Messages

Tehran: Iran's Telecommunications Ministry will start filtering "immoral" video and audio messages sent via mobile phones, state television reported on Saturday.

The Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution, a body set up after Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution, has instructed the ministry to buy the equipment needed to prevent any misuse of Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS), it said.

How ridiculous it this?!? They should just take away cell phones, and make people pass notes to each other like we did in school. Of course, then they'd have to have "official" note readers to make sure there was nothing immoral in the notes, or that they did not *GASP touch hands when they passed the notes. Are they going to be monitoring phone calls next? Or maybe they already do that. I'm sure email is next.

We mustn't have free speech. That's a Western concept!

A., don't look at my unplucked eyebrows!