While human rights groups and others are decrying Iran’s arrest of a prominent lawyer and women’s rights activists, Hamas is trying to throw women into a time warp, back to 20 or 30 years ago in Gaza, forcing them to adhere to a strict Muslim lifestyle.

In Iran, activist Shadi Sadr was recently arrested on her way to Friday prayers with other women activists by plainclothes agents who beat her and tore her clothes. She reportedly was taken to an unknown location. The National Council of Resistance of Iran is calling for her release, along with the release of other women’s rights activists and lawyers who have been arrested and remain imprisoned. Sadr is just the latest to be arrested since Iran’s recent disputed presidential election. "This was an illegal, arbitrary and violent arrest, in which no attempt was made by the authorities to show identification or provide any explanation for their action," said Malcolm Smart, director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa program.

Human Rights Watch says Iranian authorities continue to arrest prominent human rights lawyers to prevent them from representing reform supporters detained following the elections, and to keep them from leaking information to the rest of the world about the situation there. Other lawyers have been threatened.

Meanwhile, in Gaza, professional, educated, female lawyers are being forced to wear head scarves and long-sleeved dresses in court by an Islamic Hamas movement. A Hamas spokesman said the government "is extremely observing the general morals and it keeps calling for kind ethics." Human rights groups are slamming the decision. Hamdi Shaqoura of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights said the edict "violated personal freedoms" and that it raised fears that Hamas intended to impose Islamic religious law, or Sharia. There are also reports that Hamas has urged shopkeepers to take down foreign ads showing women’s bodies and to keep lingerie out of display windows.