Police in Gaza Cracking Down on Trendy Hair by Shaving it

Police in Gaza City have begun cracking down on trendy fashions in the Palestinian enclave, with rights groups reporting security forces arresting young men with long hair and shaving their heads.

Men with gelled hair spikes and fashionable trousers are reportedly being arrested and sometimes beaten by police. The crackdown is the latest move by the Hamas rulers to apply a strict interpretation of Islamic law on the Gaza Strip.

Women are already pressured to wear headscarves in public, and the leadership recently passed a law requiring schools to segregate classes by gender beginning at age nine.

Gaza officials have downplayed the reports of head shaving, but teens and young adults have said police are combing the streets looking for violators. The Palestinian Center for Human Rights has called on Hamas to investigate what it termed "arbitrary detentions and  
arrests."