Great pics from Iran, via BBC:

The Creeping Restrictions in Iran
By AZADEH MOAVENI/TEHRAN Thursday, Aug. 24, 2006

There is nothing new about the restrictions themselves. They were the grim reality of life here before the 1997 election of the liberalizer Mohammad Khatami. The difference today is the sporadic and velvet-gloved implementation of the old codes. Instead of announcing new bans or dispatching morality police onto the streets of Tehran to harass and arrest young people — the crude, classic measures that fomented much anger and discontent — the system is employing more subtle means that seek to make Iranians themselves, instead of uniformed agents of the state, the enforcers.

So discreet is this steady creep toward Talibanism that it only hit me last week, after a visit to the beauty salon. Usually, framed photos of coiffed brides adorn the walls, but I arrived to find the coffee-colored walls blank, save a clinical advertisement for fungus-fighting nail polish. Authorities had raided the salon two weeks prior, declaring images of unveiled women illegal and demanding they be taken down. In Iran, women's hair salons are off limits to men anyway, so it makes little sense why photos of coiffed women should be banned in a room full of women getting their hair coiffed.

Of course, in the spectrum of ways the clerics can oppress women and restrict their rights, this is perhaps not the most alarming. What is worrisome is the shift of focus. Under Khatami, the state relaxed many of its most repressive codes, especially those aimed at restricting women's access to public space and discouraging their participating in civic life. Women's singing, for example, banned for years after the revolution became permissible in group ensembles. But the sort of mentality that seeks to ban images of women typically wants also to control and restrict women's place in public life. At a recent concert in the town of Sari, the female members of Iran's only non-government orchestra were asked to play from behind a black curtain. They have been disinvited from an upcoming concert in northwestern Iran altogether.

There have been other warning signs, of course. But until that day at the beauty salon, I had ignored any hint of a return to 7th-century mores, preferring to savor a few extra weeks of denial before the government-issued burqa arrived at my doorstep. A month ago I met a few girlfriends for coffee at a caf� popular with young people. Upon lighting a cigarette, one of them was informed by the embarrassed owner that smoking is now illegal for women in caf�s. Now half the women I know don't go out for coffee anymore. An ingenious way of stifling Tehran's bustling caf� scene without resorting to a single raid.

That same week, I showed up at the gym wearing the standard uniform of young, urban Iranian women: a veil, short coat and jeans. The receptionist told me the authorities had also paid them a visit; unless their women patrons started dressing more conservatively, the gym would be shut down. Again, the official warning was smoothly delivered via a civilian intermediary without ugly confrontation, and was perhaps even more effective for its underlying threat: if you don't dress the way we want, we will take away your ability to exercise. At the same time, authorities have targeted retailers of those popular short-coats, known as manteaus, and warned shop owners against stocking them. You still see women in the street wearing their fashionable, clingy manteaus, but over two weeks it took real effort to find them in shops. The idea is to make life difficult enough for retailers that they stop selling the sinful frocks altogether.

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1333660,00.html