The National’s correspondent in Iran, Michael Theodoulou, filed a story today describing how a woman who was being chided/shamed by a Shia cleric in Iran … beat up the cleric, sending him to the hospital.

The problem, according to the cleric, was that the woman’s head was not completely covered. Can’t have that. A confrontation ensued.

It may seem over the top, attacking the cleric. But an Iranian woman who has left the country gave an idea of what it is like to be a woman in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

From our reporter:

“I’m not a supporter of violence,” Golnaz Esfandiari wrote on her Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty blog, “but as a woman who grew up in Iran and was harassed many times for appearing in public in a way that was deemed un-Islamic, I understand the frustration that woman in Semnan must have felt and why she lashed out at the cleric.

“For the past 30 years, Iranian women have been harassed, detained, fined and threatened by the morality police, security forces and zealots over their appearance.”

Flogging is the official punishment for women dressed inappropriately but apparently is rarely carried out. Thank goodness.

Instead, they are lectured and then made to “sign a pledge to mend their ways.”

Still, even that process is described as “humiliating.”

It’s a wonder some cleric hasn’t been pushed around sooner.