“The mayor, Mohammad Ali Najafi, attended a celebration last week amounting to an Islamic version of Mother’s Day. There he encountered six [grade-school-aged] girls dancing in traditional costumes and throwing the rose petals in honor of a female saint.” Islamist hardliners were predictably outraged: said one mullah: “One cannot argue that these were children. They were young girls who incited arousal. They made the most atrocious movements. This cannot be justified.”