As Ramadan Starts, Iran Prosecutor Wants Action Over Fast Breakers In Cars

Iran’s prosecutor-general has called on the police to challenge those eating and drinking in their cars during daylight in the fasting month of Ramadan.

In a letter to the police commander-in-chief Hossein Ashtari, Mohammad Jafar Montazeri pointed out that vehicles are not private property, meaning that any eating and drinking inside cars in public places should not take place.

Ramadan fasting begins Sunday in Iran. It started Saturday, as expected, in Saudi Arabia, once the Ramadan crescent moon was confirmed Friday. The United Arab Emirates and Kuwait also declared Saturday as the first day of the lunar month.

Montazeri stressed that prosecutors across Iran should cooperate with, and support the police, in following holy month’s rituals and regulations. Foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian tweeted a wish that the holy month bring “mercy…to us and all peoples with goodness, tranquility and abundance.”

Fewer people have been observing the Muslim fasting period in recent years but police arrest and fine anyone who breaks the rules in public.

In addition to avoiding certain actions mentioned in the Qur'an, Muslims must abstain from food or drink of any kind from dawn to dusk, which will be about 14 hours in Iran this year.

Every year police enforce a national plan to deal with those who break Ramadan rules in public, and transgressors are sometimes sentenced to months of detention and lashes.