Iran: Enemies 'plotting' against new dress code says Ahmadinejad

[jmc247]

One week after police started enforcing strict new Islamic dress code rules, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Friday that his opponents were manipulating the moralization campaign so as to create discontent. "Our enemies want a limited group of people, mostly youth, to hit the streets dressed in a vulgar manner to provoke police intervention and then use against our country the bad feelings of young people who have been mistreated by security officials," said the president.

The country's top police officer announced on Thursday that some 150,000 women have been detained in Iran over the past week for violating strict new Islamic dress code rules.

Some papers in Tehran ran articles recalling how the president had promised not to meddle into the dress codes of young Iranians during the electoral campaign leading to his June 2005 presidential election.

The head prosecutor of Tehran, Saiid Mortazavi, the magistrate who banned dozens of papers and is suspected of a role in the murder of Canadian photographer Zahra Kazemi, during questioning said: "These women who infest our streets by dressing like vulgar models must be considered criminals as they threaten the security and decensy of our youth."

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