Iranians Get Dressing Down for Dressing Up

Iran’s vice police are back patrolling the streets of Tehran to curb outfits they deem too Western. Women are forbidden to wear body-fitting clothes or expose their hair or skin. Men are targeted for tight jeans, T-shirts and spiky haircuts. Offenders are usually put on trial, fined or jailed, and forced to sign a document promising to follow Islamic norms.

The fashion police have returned in full force after a late spring respite. Authorities say they hope to eliminate “walking advertisements for Western sexual deviancy and satanic cults,” but the LA Times reports that the campaign may be retaliation against the upper class, whom the conservative middle and lower classes see as a vestige of pre-revolutionary Western influence. (More Iran stories.)