Iraqi students beaten for long hair, jeans

This story comes from Iraq, that hotbed of freedom and democracy. Students in Najaf were beaten, arrested, beaten again, and had their heads shaved. Their crime? Wearing jeans and having long hair.

"We didn't oppress any freedoms. We detained them for a while and after we knew that they were students, we released them after they pledged they wouldn't do it again," Colonel Najah Yasir told Reuters.

But apparently this isn't the only outbreak of fundamentalist Islam that is taking away priviledges that Iraqi people enjoyed under their last government.

Throughout the Shi'ite south of Iraq over the past two years, alcohol salesmen and others deemed to trade in goods that violate Islam have been harassed by militants.

But it is not only in Shi'ite areas that religion plays an increasingly influential role in society.

In Falluja, a Sunni Muslim city west of Baghdad that was until recently a stronghold of insurgents, there were efforts last year to instill a strict religious code similar to that enforced by the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Several residents said they were beaten for violating it.

Yay for liberation!