Free Republic

Tehran's former police chief Reza Zarei attempted suicide in prison yesterday, a month after being arrested for consorting with six naked women in a brothel. In the aftermath of the scandal, the Times, the Associated Press, and the BBC all reported that prostitutes are becoming more visible on Iranian streets. Given the Islamic dress code, how do Persian prostitutes signal their trade? Location, location, location. In the 1970s, Bostonians looking for a proverbial good time went to the "Combat Zone" and New Yorkers flocked to 42nd Street; in contemporary Iran, the holy city of Qom is known (unofficially) as a...

Tehran, 7 May (AKI) - Nureddin Zarrinkelk, a celebrated Iranian animated cartoonist, has been expelled from the fine arts department of the university of Tehran where he taught, reports said Monday. He is accused of having made fun of a female student who was wearing the full Islamic chador covering calling her a "primitive" according to pro-government news agency Rajanews. Zarrinkelk, 70, an icon of Iranian animated cinema, will not be allowed to teach anymore as part of new punitive measures in a moralization campaign which kicked off late last month and provides for the arrest of women who do...

100 turn out in Fremont for ``Wear a Hijab/Turban Day.'' EVENT PROMPTED BY SLAYING OF AFGHAN MOTHER OF SIX They came in saffron turbans, glittering purple head scarves and blue yarmulkes to show that Fremont is not a hateful place. The catalyst for the grass-roots event was the Oct. 19 slaying of Alia Ansari. The 38-year-old mother of six was gunned down as she picked up her children from a Fremont elementary school. The Afghan native wore a chador -- a loose scarf that is also called a hijab -- over her head, as a sign of modesty mandated in...

Simin slips into the local beauty salon once a month. Her hair is blow dried and styled and her face made up — and then she hides it all under her headscarf, and heads back out into the real world. Iranian women may be obliged to wear the chador — literally meaning tent — or otherwise a long coat and headscarf whenever they head outdoors, but that has not dampened their appetite to pamper themselves. "I do it because it makes me feel good," says Simin, a housewife and mother of two in her mid-30s. "It is in a woman’s...

Passions run deep under the Iranian chador as young lovers outfox the hardline clerics By Leonard Doyle in Isfahan, Iran 02 November 2002 Nazar Street in the heart of the ancient Persian city of Isfahan is crackling with sexual energy as Iran's Saviour Day holiday gets into full swing. When darkness falls, the shopping street heaves with young people, men in jeans and T-shirts, women hidden behind chadors, with a heavy police presence ensuring things do not get out of hand. There is the occasional thwack of night-stick across the shoulders of Isfahan's young blades, to keep them moving and...