Iran recently expanded its ban on dog-walking to cities outside Tehran, while a growing number of Iranians are embracing dog ownership as an act of rebellion against their theocratic regime.
“Dog walking is a threat to public health, peace, and comfort,” declared a prosecutor in the western city of Hamedan.
Another prosecutor in the city of Ilam vowed “legal action” would be taken against people who walk their dogs in public. The chief prosecutor in Mashhad told reporters on Monday that walking dogs is a “clear crime” committed “under the name of harassment of women and children.”
Iran’s hostility to dogs is based on Islamic traditions that regard the animals as “unclean.” Advertising for pet-related items was banned by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance in 2010, and in 2014, the Iranian parliament considered flogging as the proper punishment for dog walkers.
In 2017, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said owning dogs for any reason besides “herding, hunting, and guarding” is “reprehensible.”
“If this practice resembles that of non-Muslims, promotes their culture or causes harm and disturbance to neighbors, it is deemed forbidden,” Khamenei declared. He went on to issue a fatwa, or religious order, declaring that Muslim prayer is “invalid” if conducted in the presence of dog hair, while dog saliva renders anything it touches “impure.”
In 2021, a group of Iranian lawmakers denounced dog ownership as a “destructive social problem” that could “gradually change the Iranian and Islamic way of life.”
The regime has never quite gotten around to a nationwide ban on the pets, but municipal governments have imposed restrictions on walking them or otherwise displaying them in public. At least 19 cities have now imposed restrictions on dog walking.
Enforcement of these bans has been spotty, even in Tehran. Dissidents have embraced dogs as a symbol of defiance, and dog ownership is reportedly on the rise, particularly among young Iranians.
“Pets, including dogs, have become integral to Iranian family culture, even in religious households. Whether officials approve or not, they cannot eliminate the millions of pets in Iran,” Tehran veterinarian Dr. Damoon Ansari told the left-wing outlet New York Times (NYT) on Monday.
The NYT pointed out that Tehran only had one pet clinic at the turn of the century, while it now has dozens. Dr. Ansari called the trend of growing pet ownership “unstoppable.”
Al-Monitor had no trouble photographing numerous Tehran residents sitting with their dogs at public parks on Sunday, including a man tooling around with a pair of hefty pooches perched on the back of his motorcycle.
Some Iranians on social media dismissed reports of tougher dog bans as “nonsense” and wondered why the regime was wasting time and energy on a crackdown when Iran has so many other problems to deal with.
Dissident news service IranWire, on the other hand, found some Iranians who were nervous about the ban and worried about the safety of their dogs. IranWire suggested they had good reason to be fearful, since the new crusade against dogs is emanating not from Tehran but from Isfahan, “a city that has served as the Islamic Republic’s laboratory for testing religious-disciplinary policies.”
Iranian state media have been laying the groundwork for a crackdown over the past few months, denouncing dog-walking as symbolic of rampant criminality and running articles that linked dog ownership to “parasitic diseases,” “bed-wetting,” and “PTSD” among children.
“This media push gave officials cover, making it seem like the public wanted restrictions that really came from above,” IranWire observed.
Another sinister reason for the crackdown on canines is that lonely and disaffected Iranians have been turning to dogs for companionship and emotional support, and women sometimes rely on them for defense, so the regime hopes to demoralize its restless population by threatening their dogs.
“The dog-walking ban illuminates the Islamic Republic’s approach to social control. Rather than addressing genuine public safety concerns or implementing rational pet registration systems, authorities have chosen ideological warfare,” IranWire contended.
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