Thousands in Iran Protest Acid Attacks on Women
Thomas Erdbrink, NYT, Oct 22 2014
TEHRAN — Thousands of Iranians took to the streets of the historic city of Isfahan on Wednesday to protest several acid attacks on women (below – RB). The attacks had coincided with the passage of a law designed to protect those who correct people deemed to be acting in an “un-Islamic” way. A local official said on Wednesday that “eight to nine” women had been attacked over the past three weeks by men on motorcycles who splashed them with acid in Isfahan, one of Iran’s largest urban centers and the country’s chief tourist destination. Some of the women were blinded or disfigured. The protesters, numbering more than 2,000 according to the semi-official Fars news agency, gathered in front of the local judiciary office and shouted slogans against extremists, whom the protesters likened to supporters of ISIS. They also called for the city’s Friday Prayer leader and the prosecutor to step down, witnesses said. Critics have long accused the Iranian authorities of playing down episodes that could embarrass leaders rather than investigating the cases. “We do not want to propagate virtues by acid,” some of the protesters chanted, a reference to the Islamic obligation of “propagating virtue and preventing vice.” Others shouted, “Death to extremists.” The demonstration seemed to have been initiated on social media. That sort of protest rarely occurs in Iran, especially since rallies after the disputed 2009 elections were put down with blunt force. The acid attacks have prompted a heightened resistance to the new law, which Parliament passed on Sunday. The law is aimed at protecting citizens who feel compelled to correct those who, in their view, do not adhere to Iran’s strict social laws. The details of the law, which would officially empower the government and private citizens to give verbal or written statements on social mores, have yet to be completed. While strict rules on dress, alcohol, sexual relations and much more are not new, the law is aimed at defining crimes against propriety or decency, which in the past would often be corrected informally. In Iran, where most people live in cities and many are highly educated, conservatives are trying to avert changes in attitudes by enforcing traditions. Pres Rouhani sharply criticized the new law on Wednesday, saying that he feared it would divide society because, as many observers have pointed out, in reality it offers the country’s small but influential faction of hard-liners more power. Rouhani said during a trip to the provincial city of Zanjan, his voice shaking with emotion:
The sacred call to virtue is not the right of a select group of people, a handful taking the moral high ground and acting as guardians. It is upon all Muslims to exhort love, respect for others and human dignity. May such a day never come that some lead our society down the path to insecurity, sow discord and cause divisions, all under the flag of Islam,.
His words indicated that his government would take steps to oppose the law. That would further isolate the president on social issues from Iran’s other centers of power, like the conservative-dominated Parliament and the judiciary, which designed and welcomed the law.
Arrests Follow Acid Attacks on Iranian Women
Thomas Erdbrink, NYT, Oct 20 2014
TEHRAN — The police arrested several men Monday in connection with at least four acid attacks on women that appear part of a violent campaign in support of new rules that aim to punish women deemed “badly veiled.” The attacks spread panic around Iran’s old capital, Isfahan, which is also the country’s main tourist destination. The semi-official ISNA News Agency reported that men on motorcycles had splashed acid on women through open car windows. The episodes were widely discussed on social media in Iran as people in Isfahan said there had been more than a dozen attacks, a number not confirmed by the police but enough to prompt many women to stay indoors. Morvarid Moshtahgian, 19, said in a phone interview of an attack on Wednesday:
I saw a big crowd and heard that another attack had taken place. Now when I go on the streets my body aches with fear, and when I hear a motorcycle approaching I grab my bag so I can be ready to at least protect my face.
The attacks coincided with a law passed in Parliament on Sunday protecting those citizens who feel compelled to correct women and men who in their view do not adhere to Iran’s strict social laws. Under the Islamic obligation of “propagating virtue and preventing vice,” Parliament has officially empowered the government and private citizens to give verbal or written statements on social issues. While such rules on dress are not new, the Interior Ministry has opposed the new law on citizens’ policing of them and is trying to alter it, the official IRNA mew agency reported on Monday. Graphic pictures provided by ISNA show one of the victims, Soheila Jorkesh, in a hospital with her face badly burned. Iran’s hard-line judiciary has announced that the “most serious punishment”, usually a reference to execution, awaits the perpetrators, a spokesman, Gholam Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, said Monday. He also stressed that the attacks “have nothing to do” with improper veiling. The list of official vices in Iran is long and in many ways reflects a growing disconnect between the lifestyles of many Iranians and Iran’s Islamic laws. In addition to the strictly-enforced dress codes, alcohol is banned, as are bars and clubs, sex before marriage, Western pop music and the showing of female hands in advertisements, even for soap. In reality many of these rules are widely flouted. In recent years, some clerics who have tried to correct people have been beaten up on the streets of Tehran. Acid attacks are not as common in Iran as in India and Pakistan. In 2011, a victim of an acid attack, Ameneh Bahrami, forgave her attacker, a spurned lover, right before she was allowed under Islamic law to blind him as a result of an eye-for-an-eye ruling. Activists welcomed her decision, but now some say that laws must be tougher. Mojgan Faraji, a journalist, said:
Overall, violence against women has increased, because the punishments are not tough enough.
On social media, there have been calls for a protest on Wednesday in Isfahan. Women and their families there say they are terrified. Nilufar Abd’ol-Hasani, 22, an architecture student, said:
I wear a face mask when I go on the streets. My friends usually wear a lot of makeup, but when I saw them yesterday they were unrecognizable. We can all be victims. I hope this will be over soon.
Niqnaq 
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