While Americans use dog-walking as a common form of exercise and companionship, in Iran dog-walking is now classified as a safety and mental health violation akin to other so-called “Western behaviors.” 

Taking Tehran’s lead, which banned dog-walking in 2019 — though it is not evenly enforced, at least 17 cities in Iran announced this week that they also are banning dog-walking in public. Prosecutors in densely-populated cities like Isfahan, Qazvin, and Mazandaran have called dog-walking a public health violation. 

Hamedan Prosecutor Abbas Najafi announced that domestic dogs are now banned in city parks, public places, and private cars, according to Iranian news sources. Violators could face prosecution. 

“Walking with dogs” is a “violation of public rights” and “a threat to the comfort and tranquility of citizens,” Mr. Najafi reportedly said, adding, dog-walking is “anti-religious,” “reprehensible” and a “threat to public health.”

The police have been ordered to “systematically and physically seize vehicles carrying dogs,” reports IranWire.com, an English-language news agency monitoring Iran.

Unlicensed veterinary offices and animal shops are also in the crosshairs in the city of Urmia in the western part of the country, as are breeders.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has long been hostile toward domesticated dogs, issuing a fatwa, or decree, in 2019 that said the practice should be avoided because it resembles the actions of non-Muslims.

“There is no problem to buy and sell and keep guard dogs, shepherd dogs, and hunting dogs in special places for them,” he said. “It is appropriate to seriously avoid keeping dogs, as it is customary in western culture.”In 2021, 75 lawmakers reportedly reinforced that opinion, calling pet ownership a “destructive social problem” that could “gradually change the Iranian and Islamic way of life.”