150 people arrested at mixed-gender party in Tehran

Some 150 people were arrested at a mixed-gender birthday party in Tehran on Wednesday, state-run media has reported. 

"We had received information some time ago about a mixed party in a garden in the west of Tehran," Mohsen Khancherli, a senior Tehran police commander, told the Tasnim news agency earlier this week. 

"This garden was next door to an illegal music recording studio where about 150 boys and girls had gathered for a birthday party."

Khancherli warned that the police would keep "a very close watch on all gardens in the west of Tehran for any illegal gatherings".

Mixed-gender parties are effectively illegal in Iran under the strict Islamic legal system which also bans alcohol and pre-marital sex.

However, there has been marked rise in liberal social attitudes in parts of Iran in recent years, particularly in the capital, and the laws are frequently ignored.

Alcohol and drugs are readily accessible in many parts of Tehran, although strict penalties - including execution - can be handed down for those caught with illegal substances. 

Though the laws introduced by the 1979 Islamic Revolution brought in strict conservative rulings, previously the country’s urban middle-class had enjoyed a secular Europeanised lifestyle, remnants of which still exist.

On 16 May, Iran also announced the arrest of eight people for working in "un-Islamic" online modelling networks, particularly on the photo sharing app Instagram.

The crackdown comes despite moderate President Hassan Rouhani's effort to allow greater social and cultural freedom.

Tehran's police chief announced in April the recruitment of 7,000 plainclothes police in the capital to fight against "immorality".

The officers are responsible for monitoring and reporting "noise, harassment of women and women's lack of Islamic veil inside cars," he said.