Gee, your hair smells like the Great Satan! “Western-style barbers get the chop in Iran,” by Robert Tait for The Guardian:
Police in Tehran have closed two dozen barber shops and hairdressers in a fortnight in the latest phase of a “morals” crackdown aimed at enforcing Islamic dress codes among young Iranians.
The businesses were shut after being identified as purveyors of decadent “western” culture.
Eleven women’s hair-stylists were told to stop trading for offering customers’ tattoos. Tattooed eyebrows – in which the hair is shaved and replaced with elaborate patterns – are popular amongst many young Iranian women.
One women’s salon was shut when authorities discovered one of its employees was a man, a crime under Iran’s Islamic laws.
A further 13 barbers were closed for giving customers excessively eye-catching
haircuts and plucking men’s eyebrows. Many young Iranian men wear their hair in a gelled-up
bouffant that would look outlandish even in some western countries.
The closures were imposed by Amaken-e Omoomi, a police body for regulating
businesses such as shops, restaurants and hotels, after it inspected more than 730 hairdressers in Tehran.
[…]
Men arrested in the patrols have been forced to identify their barbers and get fresh haircuts. They have then had to return to police stations for officers to decide whether their hairstyles are acceptable.
Mohammad Ali Najafi, head of Amaken-e Omoomi, told Fars news agency that police officers would accompany trade inspectors in future visits to barbers and hairdressers.
Those breaking the law would be closed immediately, he said.