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Segregating The Sexes In Tehran

Tehran's city government is trying to separate male and female employees within its offices, a move parallel with moral norms favored by Iran's Islamic government but likely to irk less conservatie segments of the population.

This would not be the first such move in Iran since the 1979 revolution. There have been previous attempts to separate the sexes at universities, and buses already have distinct sections for men and women — which is also the case in some other countries, including Mexico.

It is unclear when the change might happen, but conservative politicians are praising Tehran Mayor Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, the conservative daily Jomhuri-e Eslami reports.

Tehran MP Ali Motahari wrote in a public letter to the mayor that this separation of the sexes within city offices should have happened years ago and there was "consensus" about segregation at work. "This is in contrast with the Western world, which wants to belittle chastity, and we see all the problems they face, with precarious families ... homosexuality and the degradation of women," Motahari wrote.

Previous governments evaded the issue, he wrote, apparently fearing electoral consequences. "It is not clear what the opponents of this initiative are upset about," he wrote.

Deputy judiciary head Ebrahim Raisi has separately said that women support the change, because "most women need an entirely suitable and calm environment so they can work better."

Tehran's Revolutionary Guards commander Mohsen Kazemini said that "our sisters and brothers" shouldn't sit beside each other at work and "pull away the curtain of decency." He told a conference on women and religion Wednesday that "divorce figures between working people are not small, and this is of concern."

Iranian authorities aren't ignorant of modern lifestyles, but they want to limit situations that could lead to sex outside of marriage.

These comments about segregating the sexes came amid a more disturbing report about a Tehran school principal accused of abusing girls between the ages of 8 and 11. Judiciary official Mozaffar Alvandi recently said that it was unclear whether the abuse was "imposed" or whether the incidents between the girls and the teacher were "consenting."

After his outrageous comments, Alvandi declined requests from the BBC to elaborate. He told Iran's ILNA news agency that child abuse is a problem everywhere, not just in Iran, and that "mutual attraction exists at certain age groups," and that children today are not as innocent as they were in the past. He supports "certain types of education for certain age groups" — or some form of sex education — if only to counter the influence of the "Internet and satellite dishes."

— Ahmad Shayegan

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Society

Italy's Right-Wing Government Turns Up The Heat On 'Gastronationalism'

Rome has been strongly opposed to synthetic foods, insect-based flours and health warnings on alcohol, and aggressive lobbying by Giorgia Meloni's right-wing government against nutritional labeling has prompted accusations in Brussels of "gastronationalism."

Dough is run through a press to make pasta

Creation of home made pasta

Karl De Meyer et Olivier Tosseri

ROME — On March 23, the Italian Minister of Agriculture and Food Sovereignty, Francesco Lollobrigida, announced that Rome would ask UNESCO to recognize Italian cuisine as a piece of intangible cultural heritage.

On March 28, Lollobrigida, who is also Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's brother-in-law, promised that Italy would ban the production, import and marketing of food made in labs, especially artificial meat — despite the fact that there is still no official request to market it in Europe.

Days later, Italian Eurodeputy Alessandra Mussolini, granddaughter of fascist leader Benito Mussolini and member of the Forza Italia party, which is part of the governing coalition in Rome, caused a sensation in the European Parliament. On the sidelines of the plenary session, Sophia Loren's niece organized a wine tasting, under the slogan "In Vino Veritas," to show her strong opposition (and that of her government) to an Irish proposal to put health warnings on alcohol bottles. At the end of the press conference, around 11am, she showed her determination by drinking from the neck of a bottle of wine, to great applause.

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