It is the fact that the law is on the books, and could be enforced. If they aren't going to enforce those laws, why not remove the restrictive codes from the legal books?
there are laws like this in every country....theres a law in the us which says if you joke about a serious security matter you can be thrown in jail, but it isnt enforced....state beauracracies (sp?) are ineffecient when it comes to things like this...so i guess this is an international issue that all states have to deal with
I know people in airports even pre 9/11 who made jokes about that kind of thing. They were detained. I think something affecting the safety of the greater society is different than individual freedoms that don't put others in jeopardy. But there have been archaic laws on the books, that should have been removed long ago, and probably are still on the books in a lot of states. That doesn't change the fact that Iran's law is restrictive of freedom.
Lets counter all this negative propaganda with some positive news about Iran, which is very progressive I might add. Iran World Model for Population Control http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/Update4ss.htm
you still cant take away from the accomplishments that were made over a long period of time and what makes you think the trend isnt continuing? According to Harvard: Iran has the most effective fertility reduction program in the world http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/now/jan24/iran.html
Here is the leader of the fertility reduction program! If you were a Iranian Woman would you screw him???
I don't know enough about Iran to know whether everything CreepyFloyd is saying is true or not. I've never lived in or even visited post-revolutionary Iran, though I have many relatives, friends, and classmates who have. But even from my limited experience, I think there are a lot of things in what CreepyFloyd is saying that are worth considering. The portrayal of Iran in the main stream western media is certainly highly distorted and misleading. I'm currently studying engineering in a top US university and one of the most surprising thing to me when I first started was the number of Iranian women in the PhD program. My department's overall graduate student population is about half Americans and half foreign students, but the female graduate students are mostly Chinese and Iranian with very few Americans. So at least in terms of educational opportunities, Iran seems to be less oppressive toward women than the US. Speaking to my Iranian classmates, it seems that most are dissatisfied with at least some aspects of Iranian government and society and many of them are actually highly critical of many things in Iran. However, I get the feeling that none of them wants their government overthrown in a revolution and they certainly don't support an Iraq style takeover by the US. One thing that's unanimous among them is their criticism of the depiction of Iran in the US media, and I get this even from the most westernized, atheistic, and anti-establishment Iranians. Now, on the issue of Hajib. I think this is a sexist discrimination against women just like laws in the US against women going topless in public. If we are to criticize laws or prevailing morals in a society that forces women to dress in a certain way different than men, then we should criticize all such laws/morals whether they're in Iran or in the US. As an aside, when my aunt worked in Iran, she wore a loose scarf around her hair most of the time in public out of respect for local customs, but there were times when she either forgot or for whatever other reason that she didn't wear the scarf and she was never harrassed about it.
I'm pretty sure we all support the right of women to go topless wherever they chose. Er, minus Creepyfloyd, adeelsiqui, and azadre.
Gosh, you just ruined an otherwise insightful post with that statement. It simply can not be true. Heck blazer_ben for one wouldn't mind an Iraq-style take-over of Iran by the US.
I wish the Europeans would wake up to this serious abuse of women's rights and start sanctioning the US until such ludicrous laws are abolished
Why? It is a fact that there are more Iranian women in the PhD program in my department than American women despite the fact that it is an American university with far more American students overall than Iranians. Is blazer_ben Iranian? Was he (or his family) among the Shah's supporters that fled the revolution? I'm sure Cuban exiles in Miami wouldn't mind a US takeover of Cuba either but that doesn't mean people in Cuba would think the same way.
Well hayes, I now recall you were not in favor of "12 and 14 year old girls gyrating in public in a sexually suggestive manner." Perhaps you yourself need to be enlightened a little bit before you scoff at Iranian women's lack of liberation?
as far as the first comment, i think wnes was joking and/or being sarcastic as for balzer_ben, he is iranian and he does sound like a supporter of the shah or at least he claimed iran was a better place then, and he also said he has family in iran and some in the military, but he also voted yes in a poll in whether the us would attack iran as well iranian women also make-up a majority of university students within iran as well
i present you guys with evidence regarding iran's progressive measures and you all just joke around about it
That's not the same as American female student being suppressed for their education opportunities. If anything, it just shows the opposite. Christian conservatives imposing their moral values on the general public is a good one. I am all for women going topless.
