Social rules clash with reality for Iran's youth

[rug]

By Hashem Kalantari

TEHRAN | Thu Oct 6, 2011 11:19am EDT

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Twenty-one-year-old Iranian Farnoush has her own job but no longer her own telephone.

When her father looked at her text messages and discovered she had a boyfriend, he confiscated the cell phone, saying her behavior was not proper in an Islamic republic.

"You have no idea. It's the worst feeling, the pressure, when your father finds out you have a boyfriend," Farnoush said, while plucking a customer's eyebrows at a Tehran salon.

Iran is governed by a version of sharia law which in theory prohibits any mingling between members of the opposite sex outside marriage or close family. While social rules were relaxed under reformist former President Mohammad Khatami, who was first elected in 1997, things have tightened up again since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad succeeded him in 2005.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/06/us-iran-youth-idUSTRE7951Y720111006

[Jim__]

1. It sounds like life in Iran is completely insane.

The Shah was bad; but this ...

[LeftishBrit]

2. Interesting but sad article

Theocracy is never a good thing.