TEHRAN: Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came under fire from other hardliners on Wednesday for opposing a social crackdown targeting dress and behaviour, mainly of women.
In a televised interview at the weekend, Ahmadinejad said that he was "strongly against such actions. It is impossible for such actions to be successful."
A senior hardline cleric responded by accusing Ahmadinejad of undermining efforts to fight "corruption."
"The president in his interview did not appreciate the sacred wave which advocates veiling and chastity and he belittled it," Ahmad Khatami said in comments carried by the moderate Shargh newspaper on Wednesday.
By law, women in Iran must be covered from head to foot and social interaction is banned between unrelated men and women.
The head of parliament’s clerical faction, Mohammad Taghi Rahbar, also interpreted Ahmadinejad’s comments as a "green light to immodest dressing."
"Those who voted for you were the fully veiled people.
The badly veiled ‘greens’ did not vote for you, so you’d better consider what pleases God is not pleasing a number of corrupt" people, Shargh quoted Rahbar as saying.
The Green Movement of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi won over Iran’s urban youth by pledging more social freedom in last year’s election.
Iran’s morality police have returned to the streets in recent weeks, confiscating cars whose male drivers are seen to be harassing women, local media have said, without clarifying what amounts to harassment.
The reports say the crackdown has become a major issue for Iran’s predominantly young population, with police or hard-line militiamen stopping cars with young men or women inside to question their relationship.
They say the Islamic dress code for women is also being more strictly enforced.
But leading conservative lawmaker Ali Motahari noted Ahmadinejad’s "interior ministry declared its preparedness for this initiative… and the president undermines his own work by such comments," Shargh reported.
"If the president insists on his stance, the parliament will surely respond," warned Motahari, who is a vocal critic of Ahmadinejad.
