TEHERAN (AFP) – Iranian security forces arrested 10 people who clashed with police in Teheran after they arrested a woman deemed to be badly veiled as part of a moral crackdown, a deputy police chief said on Friday.
“A sister was warned over her dress but she resisted. She refused to cooperate while being transferred to the patrol car and made a scene,” the ISNA news agency quoted Commander Hossein Zolfaghari as saying.
“Some people were affected by the noise and clashed with the police and were eventually arrested,” he said.
Nine people as well as the woman in question had been detained, he said, without giving further details.
Zolfaghari was commenting on an incident in the busy Sadeghieh square in western Tehran, ISNA said, which according to unofficial reports took place on February 23.
“Even if the police’s actions had been not merited that girl should not have resisted,” he said. “If an official warns a driver about going through a red light should he get out and grab the official by the neck?”
Thousands of women have been warned over insufficient covering of hair and bodily contours in Iran, which launched a nationwide moral crackdown in April 2007 in a drive to “elevate security in society.”
Unlike similar campaigns in the past – which wound down at the end of summerââ¬âvans of the moral police are still a common sight in Tehran’s main squares as officials monitoring passing women.
