Iran Closes 1000 Restaurants, Arrests 11 People for Violating Ramadan as Islam Clamps Down

‘Illegal music & debauchery’: Iran shuts over 1,000 eateries

for not observing ‘Islamic principles’

Islam tends to become more and more fundamentalist with time and with increasing proportions of populations. Iran was suddenly and dramatically changed from a free nation to a legalistic theocracy when the Ayatollah Khomeini threw out the American puppet in the 1979 revolution. Iran has been slowly becoming more legalistic since.

It is legalism that denies all credibility to Islam as having come from the God of Abraham. Jesus Christ came to fulfill the 'legal' requirements of God and instill the principal of 'grace' - the forgiveness of sins who's punishment was served by Christ Himself on the Cross. Mohammed came along 600 years later and re-installed legalism, nullifying grace in those who choose to follow him instead of Jesus Christ.

Mixed-sex couple in one of the discreet smoking lounges at the back of a Tehran cafe.

Such establishments were targeted in the past month. ©  Getty/Kaveh Kazemi

Police have closed hundreds of restaurants in major Iranian cities during a more-severe-than-usual Ramadan crackdown, while authorities have urged citizens to report “immoral behavior” by texting a dedicated hotline.

“The owners of restaurants and cafes in which Islamic principles were not observed were confronted, and during this operation 547 businesses were closed in Tehran and 11 offenders arrested,” Tehran police chief Hossein Rahimi said on the official department website.

The establishments were shut down in the past fortnight over “unconventional advertising in cyberspace, playing illegal music and debauchery.”

Similar mass police interventions were reported throughout the country, including the sealing-up of over 300 restaurants in the third-largest city, Ishafan.

The holy month of Ramadan, which ended on June 4, during which devout Muslims are forbidden from eating between dawn and dusk, is usually accompanied by intensive behavior policing, including frequent arrests of those caught eating in the daytime, though such behavior is not legally banned.

Denunciation hotline & all-female hijab police

But activities this year are suggestive of wider social tensions between the urbanized population and hardline officials.

On Saturday, Tehran’s guidance court, which ensures compliance with social edicts, issued a phone number through which citizens could report unsavory acts, such as “hosting mixed gender dance parties” or posting “immoral content on Instagram.”

“People would like to report those breaking the norms but they don't know how ... We decided to accelerate dealing with instances of public immoral acts,” its head Mohammad Mehdi Hajmohammadi told Mizan Online.

Prayers marking the end of Ramadan in Tehran. ©  REUTERS/HANDOUT

Police are reportedly launching a pilot project in which 2,000 morality police units, consisting of six women each, will be sent to the streets in the province of Gilan to observe that women are wearing headscarves, in accordance with rules adopted after the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

A demonstrative refusal to wear the hijab has become a common form of female rights protest in the country in the past two years. Officials have dismissed it as a Western plot, and say that keeping the hijab in place is a “matter of national security.”

It's really a matter of 'national insanity'!

What Happened to Free Speech?

The following dissertation by a brilliant journalist is  well worth the few minutes of listening to, or reading. It's about free speech on American campuses. 

Ben Shapiro is editor-in-chief of The Daily Wire

He states 3 premises made by those who advocate that violence is justified against free-speech:

1. The validity or invalidity of an argument can be judged solely on the ethnic, sexual, cultural, or racial identity of the person making the argument.

2. They claim those who disagree are engaging in 'verbal violence'.

3. They conclude that physical violence is sometimes justified to stop such 'verbal violence'.

Why is this important? Because the end of free speech is the end of democracy. The country is ripe for the beginning of autocracy whether it is right-wing extremism, neo-liberalism, or something we cannot yet conceive, it leaves America open for such things as theocracies.

Only one theocracy will ever work in this world and that is when Jesus Christ returns.

Iranian Crackdown on Un-Islamic Behaviour Will Backfire

30+ Iranian students lashed 99 times because of coed party

By Allen Cone

Iranian hard-line university students shout "death to America " as they gather in front of the Greek Embassy in Tehran, Iran on April 8, 2014. Students demonstrated over the recent human rights resolution passed by the European Parliament. Recently, some students were punished for hosting a coed graduatiuon party. FIle photo by Maryam Rahmanian/UPI | License Photo

TEHRAN, May 28 (UPI) -- More than 30 Iranian college students were arrested and given 99 lashes after they attended a co-ed graduation party, Iran's judiciary announced.

Prosecutor Esmail Sadeghi Niaraki said the women were described as "half naked," meaning they were not wearing Islamic coverings, scarves and long coats, and "dancing and jubilating."

Jubilating will get you every time! 'Half naked' actually means 'visible'; Islam likes to keep its women invisible, because its men seem to be completely devoid of self-control.

The prosecutor said authorities don't tolerate "law-breakers who use excuses such as freedom and having fun in birthday parties and graduation ceremonies," the Mizan News Agency reported.

The authorities received a report that a party attended was being held in a villa on the outskirts of Qazvin, about 90 miles northwest of the capital.

"We hope this will be a lesson for those who break Islamic norms in private places," Niaraki said.

The report by Iran's Mizan News Agency didn't say when the party occurred or give the students' names, ages or schools.

Lashings had been punishment since the Islamic revolution of 1979, but lately it's been more of a threat.

Iranian people are not generally intensely Islamic. They are probably more secular at heart, and I can't imagine such heavy-handedness by the theocratic state is going to win them many friends in this year's graduating class of students. I wouldn't be surprised if this is the spark that eventually lights a revolution of the revolution.

One day earlier, the state news media reported raids on parties in Kerman and at a "singles home" in Semnan, both provincial capitals.

Iran's judiciary earlier arrested eight people involved in online modeling without heads coverings and questioned a former model on state television.

God forbid, we wouldn't want men to find out that women have hair on their heads.