WUNRN
The Supreme Leader
of Iran is the head of state and highest ranking
political and religious authority in the Islamic Republic of Iran. The post was
established by the constitution in accordance with the
concept of Guardianship of the Islamic Jurists.The
leader is more powerful than the President of
Iran and appoints the heads of many powerful posts in the
military. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supreme_Leader_of_Iran
Iran’s Supreme
Leader Rejects Western Views on Feminism
Agence France Presse
5 September
2014 - TEHRAN: Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei
slammed Western values which he said, unlike those in the Islamic Republic,
undermine feminism.
His comments
come amid political tensions in Iran, where conservatives want to strengthen
measures preventing women and men from mixing while President Hassan Rouhani advocates more social freedoms.
“Moral
crises are increasing in the West, such as ... adopting a wrong position about ‘women’
and seriously undermining the feminism wave,” Khamenei said in remarks posted
on his website www.leader.ir.
In Iran,
values concerning the role of women in society are inscribed in the
constitution, which states it is the “duty” of Iranian women to raise children
within the respect of religion.
Khamenei
made the remarks during a meeting with the Assembly of Experts, a body of
religious leaders tasked with overseeing the activities of the supreme leader
and who have the power to sack him.
The assembly
met Khamenei after wrapping up its annual conference during which they
discussed the West’s “cultural invasion,” such as liberal dress codes and
concerts that violate religious law, media reported.
In June, 195
of the conservative-dominated parliament’s 290 MPs wrote to President Rouhani
asking him to enforce the dress code law, denouncing what they called a Western
“cultural invasion.”
Rouhani, a
moderate elected in June 2013 after campaigning for greater cultural and social
freedoms in Iran, has also stirred controversy.
In October
he asked police to be moderate when enforcing the requirement for women to wear
the hijab. Under Islamic law in force in Iran
since the 1979 revolution, women must wear loose clothing and a hijab.
But recent
years have seen many wear a thin veil that hardly covers the hair, tight clothing
or coats reaching mid-thigh instead of the long coat or chador.
More
recently the police chief triggered criticism from Vice President Shahindokht Molaverdi after he said women
should not serve clients in traditional tea houses and coffee shops, apparently
to avoid direct contact with men.
Molaverdi
denounced the suggestion, saying banning women from being waitresses could only
undermine their position in society and force them out of jobs.
A decision
by Tehran Mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, a conservative, to separate men and
women from working together at the town hall has also triggered alarm among
liberals.
Meanwhile
women’s publications have also come under scrutiny, according to Shahla
Sherkat, the editor-in-chief of Zanane Emrooz (Women Today).
Sherkat told AFP she had been summoned by a media watchdog
after a complaint had been lodged against her magazine for publishing pictures
of women “considered as objects.”