Sunday, October 13, 2002 - 2002 IranMania.com

TEHRAN, Oct 13 (AFP) - A conservative Iranian prayer leader denounced the "moral depravity" of dog ownership and called on the judiciary to arrest all dogs and their owners, the reformist Etemad paper reported Sunday.

"I demand the judiciary arrest all dogs with long, medium or short legs together with their long-legged owners, otherwise I will arrest them myself", the Etemad newspaper quoted the cleric, named as Hojatoleslam Hasani, as saying at a Friday prayer sermon in the northwestern city of Urumieh.

"The abominable people in this country think that liberty means loose morals, for example men and women walk in the streets hand in hand", he added.

Depsite official diapproval of dogs, which are mostly referred to as "unclean" in Islam, dog ownership recently has been on the rise and more women are seen in public walking their dogs, particularly in northern Tehran.

In June the police banned the sale of dogs and stipulated penalties for dog walking in public, which is seen by conservatives as a sign of the corrupting influence of decadent Western culture.

-- Anonymous, October 13, 2002