01:00

V/O

shrines at night

01:15

V/O

shrines and women

17 years ago Iran's Islamic Revolution took the world by surprise. A decade later, when its leader the Ayatollah Khomeini died, his body was almost crushed by 10 million mourners. It was probably the biggest funeral in history. Today his followers are still lining up... to weep, give money and kiss his holy shrine.

01:57

V/O

Tehran

Today, Iran's biggest city, Tehran, is still dominated images of Revolutionary Islam: glaring Ayatollahs  and black shrouded women. But though few say it openly, there's a growing consensus... that the revolution that promised so much has failed to deliver.

02:18

Int: Shireen Samieh,

Publisher

They started the limitations by the dress codes, especially for women. It started with the government organisations and little by little it came into everyday life.

02:34

Shireen  with books

Before the Revolution Shireen Samieh was a university lecturer. Now she avoids politics, translating art books from Persian to English.

02:45

Int: Shireen Samieh

Men and women were always together before, its not allowed any more. At the university the boys and girls are now separated, no integration of men and women anywhere is allowed unless the women are fully dressed in the Islamic dress code.

03:06

V/O

women in hejab

1400 years ago the Prophet Mohammed told his followers to keep their women hidden behind a curtain. Some say it was to stop them from looking at his own wives. Now in modern Iran, hejab, from the Arabic word for curtain is compulsory may just be a coat and scarf but no woman can go anywhere outside without it. Women aren't also supposed to wear make up or flashy jewellery, and everywhere you go there are constant reminders... good hejab is dignity.

03:45

Int: Shireen Samieh

A hejab is only a limitation. And when you are limited in your movements you become limited in your thinking and in your mind. They go side by side.

04:01

Int: Leila

In Iran everything is for men... even the men know it. They can go out any way that they want to and they are not bothered with that as much as we are.

04:14

V/O

girls in bedroom

Roya, Rosa and Leila are well off, well educated. Like more than half of the country's population, they were born after the Revolution. For them Revolutionary struggle is simply history. The struggle now is to have fun. At home they look like teenagers anywhere, but as soon as they go out... they have to by law cover everything except their faces.

04:41

Int: Leila

It's really bad for a girl because it's really hot, you can't do anything and then they are always bored. Like boys can do lots of things... they can go out, they can skate, do lots of things but girls can't. They want to ride a bicycle, they can't do it.

05:00

V/O

girls putting on headscarves

It's the beginning of the weekend. The girls may have to look Islamically modest, but they're still going out on the town. To the street where the boys are cruising.

05:19

V/O

boys in car

Izard and Mike are both nineteen.

05:21

Int: first boy

You see it's a Thursday night and it's like a Saturday night in America or Europe... basically the streets are busy and all the teenagers are either out with their cars or just walking on the streets with their friends to find some girls or something.

05:40

Int: second boy

So you see when people are held back from each other - boys and girls - they have no way to see each other so they come to places like this. Every place in the city has its own place for different type of kids. This street is for the rich kids so when they come out they come out in their cars.

05:58

V/O

girls walking at night and baseeji

The aim of the game is to spot someone you like and give them your name on a piece of paper. The challenge is not to get stopped by the Revolutionary police known as the baseeji. Once the volunteer fighters for the revolution, there are now more than 100 thousand baseeji. Their job is to enforce the rule of the mullahs.

06:21

Int: boy in car

They're just looking for if you pick up a boy or a girl or if you go to another car and you switch phone numbers, or if you talk with each other and interact. That's basically what they're looking for.

06:36

V/O

kids eating pizza

Back home, it's take away pizza, soft drinks, and boys and girls. The baseeji aren't supposed to come inside peoples' houses. But they do. And even in private, it takes some courage to complain. Not long ago Leila's brother Yusef was beaten up, because he and Leila were walking home from school together.

07:00

Int: Yusef

Me and my sister were walking home from school. A young baseeji stopped us and I started to go... I said she's my sister and he punched me in my mouth.

07:16

V/O

Nearly every Iranian seems at some time to have been stopped or arrested.

07:22

Int: Issam

They caught me at a party 2 or 3 years ago, it was raining and the park was really muddy. They got us down to about 15 guys... we were all Iranians, they let the foreigners go... and they were telling us to roll on the ground and do push-ups. Some of them punched us and swore at us, which is pretty frustrating but you can't do anything about it.

08:06

V/O

mosques

Just South of Tehran, Qom is Iran's holiest city, the home of the mullahs.

08:18

V/O

women in chador

This is a town where you won't see a single strand of female hair. Where a woman dressed in anything less than a chador, basically a black sheet, is considered immodest.

08:34

V/O

pan shoes to class

It was here that Khomeini studied to become an Ayatollah. Today hundreds of his followers spend up to thirty years to do the same. These potential Ayatollahs don't have much time for the idea that forcing women to be covered might be limiting their freedom

08:53

vox pop Muslim

The government of justice, based on Islam tells women, ‘If you don't wear hejab and your hair is exposed you'll corrupt society by giving young men erections.

09:15

vox pop second Muslim

Hejab is not only important for Iranians. The nature of women must be covered - not only in Iran. It is obligatory for all cultures and nations.

09:36

V/O

streets

It's a simple argument: rape, crime and corruption in Western society are all caused by uncovered women.

09:45

vox pop third Muslim

Praise God. If women cover - fine - if they don't, the government has the right to force them, so as to maintain the security of society.

09:58

V/O

getting on bus

The fact is that many ordinary women agree. Covered, segregated and happy to sit in the back of the bus many women feel safer. Some say it's simply tradition... it's Westerners they told me who seem to be obsessed with how women dress.

10:18

Int: Marzeah Dasjahi,

gynecologist

Women's moral and social security is based on hejab. This is very important for us. Women like me can go out at 3 am and walk or drive a car and have security because of hejab. We think that one of the main points of security in our society, is that women are covered. Because of that the number of crimes against women is reduced.

10:47

V/O

coming into hospital room

Marzeah Dasjahi is a gynecologist and one of a handful of women Members of Parliament. She says the Revolution has been good for women and she'll readily quote you the figures. 20% of Iran's doctors are women. So are a third of the medical lecturers. Nearly half of all  university students are female. But ask her about hejab and it's lost in the translation. It isn't a matter of freedom or discrimination she says, it's simply religion.

11:18

Int: Marzeah Dasjahi

Women will never have a conflict with hejab. It makes women equal with men in society by making women compare themselves with men according to their background and ability rather than their beauty or ugliness.

11:45

V/O

girls' school

At the local high school, every girl is properly and Islamically covered. At 16 and 17 they're educated and ambitious, and like girls in other countries, they seem to have done well without having boys in the classroom

12:02

Int: girl in classroom

I think that the girls are more serious than the boys  about studying, because the boys are thinking about other things. They don't concentrate on their lessons very well, they just want to go out and play and have fun. Girls are more serious.

12:16

V/O

But the Revolution has given with one hand and taken away with the other. Iran's courts say the evidence of one man equals the evidence of two women. And these girls, once they're married, even if they become brain surgeons, won't be able to leave Iran without their husband's permission.

12:49

V/O

children's' party

Betar is celebrating her 6th birthday. By next year no man outside of her family will be able to see her hair or the shape of her body.

13:03

Int: Shireen Samieh

No matter how you dress, you can be respectful or respected or disrespectful and not respected. And I think that the Islamic dress is more a social code, a political code, rather than a real a value being placed on people.

13:37

V/O

children in hall & puppet show

Betar's friends, just one year older are already covered. To an outsider it might seem that covering and segregating seven year old girls has more to do with taking away their freedom than saving them from crime and corruption. But Iran's a place that outsiders with their own preconceptions have consistently misunderstood. 17 years ago few foreigners predicted the Islamic Revolution, even fewer thought it would last this long. Iran did succeed in shaking off foreign domination. The growing suspicion is that they simply replaced it with home grown control.

ENDS 13'24''