TEHRAN, Iran - Reformist Iranian President Mohammad Khatami on Sunday denounced tougher Islamic rules imposed on society by the hardline judiciary, including widespread public floggings.
"In a society in which there is discrimination, poverty and graft, you cannot expect youngsters not to break the law and stay the right course...with tough punishments you cannot remove social corruption," Khatami said in a speech to parliament.
"Social corruption has deep roots and to remove those roots we should work together," he added.
Since Khatami's landslide re-election in June, dozens of mostly young men have been flogged in squares across the country for consuming alcohol and "harassing" women, in what reformists say is a conservative attempt to embarrass the president.
Conservatives insist that public punishments are an inseparable part of Islamic strictures and were needed to deter rising crime and breaches of Islamic teachings.
In an apparent backlash to Khatami's liberal reforms, the judiciary has ordered the police to arrest women flaunting the Islamic dress code, and shopkeepers playing loud music or showing women's underwear or naked mannequins in their windows.
Police have raided parties, coffee shops and recreation centres and detained dozens of youngsters.
In a country where 70 percent of the population is under 30, many young people bridle at the strict social limits imposed after the 1979 Islamic revolution.
BITTER FACTIONAL ROW
Reformist Interior Minister Abdolvahed Mousavi-Lari on Sunday challenged the police crackdown.
"I have asked the police chief for a detailed explanation. I am waiting to see how this issue has been coordinated between the police and the judiciary," he said, quoted by the official IRNA news agency.
The minister also denounced the public lashings, saying they may compromise Iran's image abroad.
"They (judiciary officials) have not thought out the consequences of such punishments. We need to tune in divine teachings with our social situation to avoid hurting Iran's image," he said.
But Morteza Tehrani, a hardline cleric in the holy city of Qom, blasted reformers for challenging Islamic punishments.
"What are these clownish words, you are destroying the religion, challenging God's edicts," he said, quoted by IRNA. "You think you can say anything just because you got the people's votes?"
Hardliners argue that public desire for change, repeatedly demonstrated in past elections, has no bearing on Islamic rules.
In Qom, a central town which houses a Shi'ite Muslim shrine, even tigher restrictions have been imposed. Men have been barred from wearing ties and shops from selling them. Eight men were recently flogged in public for various offences.
Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi, who spearheads Khatami's drive to improve ties with the West, said on Sunday that his ministry was measuring foreign response to the recent floggings.
"We are reviewing and gathering information on the international reaction to the public punishments," he said. "We want to know how the floggings have changed other countries' view of Iran as a model of religious democracy."
11:05 08-19-01
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