The website Arseh Sevom, which monitors civil society in Iran, reports:

"The cost of currency combined with crippling sanctions is hurting all sectors of Iran’s society from business owners to pharmaceutical manufacturers to the population at large. Iron sellers went on strike, a food for oil deal with Shell was blocked, and children are going malnourished. Iran’s workers suffer from unpaid wages and poor safety regulations. The subsidy for medication is being slashed, and whole generations are coming to age in Iran without access to emplyment (meaningful or otherwise). Never fear! The morals police are on the job and have identified the true source of Iran’s woes: women in “bad hijab” and their cute little dogs. With their plan to crackdown, help is finally on the way.

…..
The head of the morals police force sees a correlation among women in “bad hijab,” dog-walking, and moral security, Iran Today reports. He stated, “We have a new plan to control women in bad hijab who flaunt their style and fashion in the streets.” There will be crackdowns on dog walking.

This may sound ridiculous, but it does have real world consequences. Women are fined, arrested, and harassed. Some dog owners have had their pets confiscated and killed. Pets in need of treatment are often left sick because of bans on transporting dogs."

This lousy authoritarian experiment has been going on for 34 years and the leaders will presumably keep going even if they take the whole country down with them. A great nation  sinking further in this batlagh (swamp) by their batty leaders. Now, some might say, 'Nonsense, this is what the Irnaian people wished for', and in some perverse way, I do agree with them. The challenge is to find out why did we wish this  nekbat  upon ourselves? what is about our national character that allowed or allows for such barbarity to take hold and even flourish. Could it be that the Iranian society is overly misogynistic, vindictive, ignorant, greedy, etc? Is it because  we have a distinctly, consistently borderline batty side. Iranian Shiíte culture is  weirdly sado-masochist?

On the issue of the dog, one is tempted to advise Iranian dog-lovers to choose rotweilers (or even the originally local but now rare, and magnificent but also very tough Central Asian Sheperd Dog, or Tibetan Mastiff) - or for those with less space maybe a compact pitbull or staffie, rather than small pooches. This would discourage police action in the streets, and if an officer of the Virtue and Vice Squad (Anti-Dog Division) was audacious enough to try for a confiscation, a dog-owner could just say, "Fair enough, take em away - two rotties eat too much anyway..and Iranian women  should learn from the Greek Lysistrata and withhold sex from their men until they rid themselves of these 'sex-obssessed mullahs and men.'

I hope one day Iran can recover.