Iran police crackdown 'targets posh cars'

Iranian police launched a crackdown on irreverent social behavior, seizing cars whose drivers are deemed to be harassing women, the state IRNA news agency reported on Monday.

"Tehran police have seized 20 foreign-made, high-end cars which harassed women in the north and northwest of the capital," IRNA said without explaining what amounted to harassment.

Another 40 cars were confiscated in eastern Tehran on Saturday as part of the crackdown the authorities say is aimed at boosting security.

IRNA reported the seized cars, which police can hold for up to three months, were put on display Monday in Tehran's uptown Andarzgoo Boulevard, a popular cruising route for urban youths in the evenings.

Pictures carried by Borna news agency, an IRNA offshoot, showed cars parked along a Tehran street with placards on their tops that said: "Combating harassment of women."

'Combating harassment of women'

Drivers, including women, appeared to be haggling with police.

"They caught me with my girlfriend in the car. They seized the car and my drivers' license," a young man who asked not to be named told AFP.

"Yes, the music was a bit too loud, but that's all," said the man whose Peugeot 206 was taken away on Saturday.

Un-Islamic behavior and attire

Summer-time crackdowns on what the authorities perceive as un-Islamic behavior and attire are common in Iran.

Youths, especially women, have faced tougher moral policing under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's rule since 2005.

Thousands of women were arrested and warned about wearing figure-hugging short coats and flimsy headscarves in the streets of cities in defiance of the law which requires modest dressing.

The police also targeted young men sporting tight, low-slung jeans and funky hairdos.

Government critics have slammed the practice and Ahmadinejad's opponents in the June 2009 election largely banked on it, vowing to get rid of the vice squad.

But the ubiquitous morality patrols were almost off the streets last year as Iran plunged into one of its worst political crisis with demonstrations against Ahmadinejad's disputed re-election.

Every post-pubescent woman in Iran is required to cover her hair and bodily contours in public under the Islamic republic's sharia-based law.

The punishment for women flouting the strict dress code ranges from fines of 500,000 to as much as 13 million rials ($50-1,300) in some cases, to jail terms of up to two months.

"Since the beginning of the (Iranian calendar) year (on March 21), the figure has increased to 13 million rials," Mahmoud Zoghi, a prosecutor in the religious city of Mashhad, told Fars news agency.

He did not specify what kind of public appearance could result in such a hefty fine, but noted several people were ordered to pay penalties of about $500 and two fined $1,000 for "bad veiling" in the past fortnight.