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Iran says will institutionalise moral crackdown |
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Thursday, 27 March 2008 |
Iran Focus
 Tehran, Iran, Mar. 27 - The chief of Iran's police vowed on Wednesday to institutionalise the current moral crackdown which is targeting mainly young Iranians, in yet another sign of the recent sharp increase in the repressive atmosphere in Iranian society.
Brigadier General Ismaeil Ahmadi-Moghaddam, the commander of Iran’s State Security Forces (SSF), on Wednesday said that “under no circumstances” will the SSF abandon the “plan to increase national security” and let “circumstances return to their previous state”. His comments were carried by the official news agency IRNA.
On Saturday, Ahmadi-Moghaddam said that the Persian calendar year 1387, which began on March 20, was the year of “institutionalising the plan to increase national security”.
Since April 2007, the SSF has been carrying out a nationwide crackdown primarily targeting youths and women under the guise of combating “trouble-makers” and “mal-veilers”.
Iranian officials often refer to millions of unemployed young men, who are largely beset by frustration and despair, as “trouble-makers” or “hooligans”.
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