| Iran’s latest crackdown on badly-veiled women to make them obey Islamic dress rules has found an unlikely critic in the hardline head of its judiciary, press reports said on Tuesday. Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, who is appointed by the country’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, warned police against heavy-handed actions against women found to have broken the rules. “Hauling women and young people to the police station will have no use except to cause damage to society,” the reformist Etemad Melli newspaper quoted Shahroudi as telling a meeting of local governors. “Tough measures on social problems will backfire and have counter-productive effects,” he warned. “Of course, we need to act against organised crime and thugs but when there is no necessity to take someone to a police station, there is no need to do it,” he added. Iran has issued 3,500 warnings nationwide and detained around 200 women in the new drive launched on Saturday, according to police figures quoted by local media. The campaign – an annual pre-summer crackdown given greater prominence this year – is aimed primarily at women whose coats are seen as too tight, trousers excessively short or hijabs (headscarves) overly loose. It foresees handing out warnings and guidance to women found to have infringed its dress code of fully covering the head and bodily contours in public. |