Iran detains 120 people in a coffee shop in downtown Tehran

The prosecutor of the city of Tehran, Mahmoud Jafari Dowlat Abadi announced that the Iranian Police apprehended 120 people in a coffee shop, accusing them of not being “in a normal condition,” as he describes it, which is the charge issued by the judicial authorities against coffee goers in Iran.

Dowlat Abadi added that “15 out of the 120 were drunk when we made the arrest.” Nevertheless, he did not mention the reasons for the detention of the other dozens except that they were sitting in the “center of deterioration,” as he put is.

Hassan Rouhani promised to accord more social freedoms for young people. Accordingly, many coffee shops saw the day of light in metropolis cities such as Tehran, Isfahan, and Shiraz. Yet, every now and then, the police pinch the coffee shops epitomizing them as “perversion centers that should be closed.”

Iranian, especially reformists construe the actions of the Iranian judiciary and the police toward coffee goers as “ISIS inspired,” aiming to prevent young people from filling up their spare time, especially since unemployment reached an unprecedented rate based on the last official census data.