TEHRAN - In a bid to combat flagging interest in daily prayers, Iran clerics have issued a historic decree allowing women to lead collective worship in school, the official IRNA news agency said Tuesday.

The religious decree or fatwa, will allow women to lead prayers in girls' schools for the first time since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

The education ministry said the measure was aimed at "encouraging school children to participate."

The move comes less than a month after Tehran's arts and culture department delivered what it called a "shocking" report to the city council which found almost 90 percent of young Iranian students do not pray daily.

Its research also found that 75 percent of the Iranian population as a whole does not perform the daily prayers obligatory under Islam.
 

Paper Hits Out At Government over Corruption among Youth, Agence France Presse, July 30

TEHRAN - Iran's hardline Jomhuri-Eslami paper hit out at government officials on Sunday for being too preoccupied with factional disputes and ignoring growing corruption among the country's youth.

"Every day we witness thousands of cases of corruption in the city of Tehran. Telephone booths have turned into centers for propagating moral corruption," the paper said in its commentary.

The commentary came in the wake of an announcement by an official of Tehran's cultural and artistic organization that prostitution and drug use were rampant among Iranian youth who, like their elders, are increasingly ignoring moral values, especially regarding religious duties.

The head of the organization, Mohammad-Ali Zam, described drug addiction as "the rage" among schoolchildren.

He said that in the two years 1998 and 1999 prostitution among high school students had increased by 635 percent and suicides had more than doubled from their previous record high.

The Iranian population, estimated at 62 million, is one of the world's youngest, with 35 million people under the age of 20.
 

End to Theocracy, The Washington Times, August 2

TEHRAN - … "The conservatives are now taking new positions" critical of the nation's economic and social failures "in order to try to emasculate the power of the reform legislature," he [Davoud Hermidas Bavand, a former Iranian diplomat and currently professor of political science] said in an interview yesterday.

Those failures are increasingly evident to a frustrated public, as could be seen yesterday in the midday heat of Qassemabad, a village south of Tehran where dozens of unemployed young men stood about stoned on opium.

Villagers told a visitor that the police allowed drug dealers to freely sell their wares even to small children, who have been injecting heroin as young as age 12.

"There are addicts in every home," said one man…

"I am afraid to send the small children outside - they will get addicted to opium," said one mother... "Khatami could do something, but he is afraid."

The villagers, when asked if they wanted an end to the Islamic government, disagreed among themselves, and it was not clear to what extent some feared to fully express their feelings….

… The drama will increase in September when the students return to school.
 

Papers Told to Stop Lampooning Leadership in Caricatures, Agence France Presse, August 1

TEHRAN - Iran's culture ministry on Tuesday told newspapers to stop publishing satirical caricatures of the regime's leading politicians, state radio reported.

The ministry directive said newspapers should refrain from publishing drawings of "the most important figures in the regime that could harm their image in the society," it said.

Some 20 mostly pro-reform newspapers have been shut down by conservative courts here since February.
 

Mullahs' Leader Lauds Basijis' Contribution To Cause Of Revolution, State News Agency IRNA, July 27

Khamenei, on the third day of his visit to the northwestern Iranian province of Ardebil Thursday spoke highly of Basijis, and said Basij is a creation based on conscious intuition, and on an essential philosophy and is committed to plans.

"Basijis are those who at the appropriate time voluntarily help the cause of the Revolution more than others,'' said he.

Khamenei said those who try to find fault with Basijis were aiming at the same objectives sought by the US and the enemies of the Revolution.

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