Iran cleric gunning for students armed with sex

TEHRAN: Iran's enemies are trying to corrupt university students by using an arsenal of weapons such as decadence and sex, the student news agency ISNA on Sunday quoted a top cleric as saying.

"Our university students are among the most moral in the world... but enemies have targeted our students using weapons like decadence and sex," said Hojattoleslam Mohammad Mohammadian, who represents Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in universities.

The country's conservative leaders have often voiced concern over a Western "cultural invasion" targeting young people in Iran, and accuse the West of seeking to impose its values.

"Students and professors ask me why there is no difference between college and a fashion house or beauty parlour," Mohammadian said, while still insisting that most students respect Islamic values and the dress code.

"We should seriously combat organized corruption (but) we do not want to have to police the campus," he said.

Iranians enjoyed some social liberties under the reformist presidency of Mohammad Khatami from 1997 to 2005, when many women flouting the Islamic dress code by sporting short, tight coats and with flimsy scarves barely covering their hair.

All post-pubescent women in Iran are required to cover their hair and bodies in public.

Since his election in June 2005, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has resisted taking a tough line against lapses in the dress code -- despite calls from fellow conservatives to fight "decadent" dressers and his own pledges of a return to revolutionary values.