Compiled by GayToday
Teheran, Iran -- In a show of force from Iran's governing conservatives, the government this week announced a crackdown on "un-Islamic women" and gays.
Conservatives and moderates have been in a pitched struggle for control of the country for
nearly three years and the reformist president, Mohammed Khatami, has sought in recent weeks to use the crisis over the terrorist attacks on the U.S. to improve Iran's relations with Western countries.
But the supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, has intervened-- not only ending what looked like moderate overtures to the West, but using the power struggle to put a more forceful imprint on social policy.
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According to the centrist Entekhab newspaper, a decree issued from the justice ministry calls gay Iranians a sign of the country's drift towards "western depravity." Police have
closed internet providers who allowed gay sites, and at least one internet cafe that catered to a mainly gay clientele has been shuttered.
The crackdown is similar to the one that began in earnest in Egypt two years ago and which
culminated in the May arrests of 52 predominantly gay men now on trial for "offending Islam."
The reassertion of conservative rule in Iran bans women from smoking in public, showing their hair, wearing make-up, and even from patronizing coffee shops. The use of female mannequins in shop windows is forbidden "if their body outline is visible."
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The moves are seen in pro-reform circles as part of a wider crackdown by the conservative
judiciary on young reformists and intellectuals in the country allied with President Khatami.
