ok it's Iraq but it's interesting

Here is a link to a blog put up by Morgan on a different Blog. There are a number of entries that tie more to your topic than theirs. Enjoy.

Iran Tracks Down the Porn Industry

In its biggest crackdown of pornographic web sites, Iran has arrested 26 men and women on a wide array of charges from producing adult and child porn content to mocking Islamic beliefs.
The arrests, made by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards also mark another operational change for a complex military organization. Looking into activity of these IR Guards, I found that they not only make long-range missiles and run businesses in Iran, but they are also accused of supporting militants from Iraq and Lebanon and trying to militarize Iran's nuclear program.
The special guards new proactive approach on morality has closed down 90 porn sites, all based and run from Iran. They also have a type of make-shift website (I'll post a link at the bottom) that has regularly updated the details of the operation by publishing and broadcasting what it says are the "confessions" of the people accused of managing the sites.

It also has the terrifying statistic that over half of internet users in Iran have admitted searching for porn and about one third of them do it every day...

One of the porn boss heads operation run out of Tehran was recently accused of promoting orgies and incest, illegally uploading sex clips of young girls, and ridiculing Shia Islamic beliefs such as the death of the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad.

Another person arrested is accused of writing hardcore erotic stories, a taboo in a strictly censored country...

When searching the reasoning behind the big crackdown on other pro IR guard cites, one website eloborated on a psychoanalytical accessment on Iranian's reasoning behind these crimes against Islamic fundamnetalism. Mahmood states here that Iran has a very young population, many born after the 1979 Islamic Revolution that toppled the US-backed Shah, and brought to power a theocracy that opposed to Western values and liberties, while the colonial powers have brought too much of their dirty liberalism to stop its spread and scope.

Mahmood also emphasizes how the strict control of piety is difficult to enforce, however. Especially when it comes to the internet, I found it difficult to imagine how the IR guards can try to topple something as difficult as internet porn. Undoubtedly this trend can only become larger as an increasing amount of availibility will come to the country in the future, how will their measures escalate then? Iran's internet users number around 12 million now, and have been growing exceedingly in the past 2 years.


p.s. The website also claims that access to porn websites is blocked in Iran currenlty and will be sustained as vehemently as possible, which is a strange if not impossible claim to make.

Iran's Big Little Secret

(click on title for article)
Prostitution in the Persian Gulf has skyrocketed recently, and the number in Iran is staggering. In Tehran alone, there are an estimated 84,000 prostitutes, and an estimated 250 brothels. However, sexual slavery in Iran has become an international endeavour, so to speak—thousands more women are sold into sexual slavery abroad.

Most of the women and girls who are sold into prostitution are from rural areas, and are often sold by their parents to support drug habits (look at the post below this one). What's particularly sickening is that quite often, these young women are then bought at auctions. There are also scams in which Pakistani men will marry young, poor girls, then take them across the border into Pakistan and sell them to brothels.

Because prostitution is so lucrative for the ones who run it, many of whom are corrupt politicians or connected to them, it will be hard to quell the growing tide of human trafficking within and going out of Iran. In a country that outlaws pornography, one can still own slaves.