Prostitute Scandal Rattles Tehran Government

[LSK]

A sex scandal is causing trouble for President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government in Tehran, in spite of numerous attempts to hush it up. But is Reza Zarei, the police chief caught in a brothel with six prostitutes, still alive?

General Reza Zarei, Tehran's chief of police, has been under arrest in Iran since mid-March for a curious scandal: He was caught in a brothel with six prostitutes. One of the women involved says Zarei, 52, asked the group to remove their clothes, "stand in a row in front of him and pray naked."

The trouble for Zarei -- and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who hired him -- is not just that he's chief of police in the Iranian capital. He's also in charge of vice crime. He should have been arresting the prostitutes, not paying them for kinky prayers.

The one-time chief of police in the northern province of Gilan was raised to one of the nation's top law-enforcement posts three years ago, reportedly with Ahmadinejad's patronage. His harsh moral sermons on state TV have made him famous. Fashionable young women who let their headscarves slip down around their necks were subject to his strict enforcement of Iran's dress code, and his office gave out an estimated 35,000 warnings -- to unmarried couples, for example, who held hands.

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,550156,00.html

Maybe the Iranians will just vote the "madman" out of office...

[enid602]

1. OK

I think it's OK if you arrange for a temporary marriage just before.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. Repression

of natural desires often results in perversion, I think. That this happened to a person in charge of "morals" doesn't really surprise me.

[Warpy]

6. Of course not

Anybody who's ever been on a diet knows that there's no better way to stimulate the appetite and cause an obsession over food than to deny it.

The whole nature of this thing makes me believe the guy is impotent and that is probably the source of his rage against women.

[seasat]

3. My, my, my Iran's conservatives are just as kinky as ours.

Hopefully, this will awaken the eyes of some of the Iranian clerics and allow the moderates to gain more influence. At least it might weaken Khamenei's power somewhat.

[riderinthestorm]

4. This is the only way that theocracies are any fun

It allows one to shake head with sad irony when their all-too-human foibles are manifested. Otherwise they suck big time since their religious oppression is really offensive.

They deny that they have domestic abuse, AIDS, drug problems, prostitution, on and on, trying to paint their particular religion as some kinda utopia when in reality people are people and are going to have the same social problems as anywhere else. These stories are suppressed at the general population level but usually burst out big time when one of the big guys is exposed.


edit for typo.

[DU9598]

5. Karma, perhaps

Perhaps his crackdown on gays - anyone remember the ghastly photos of the two young boys hung in Iran? - has finally resulted in karma for this madman.

[ismnotwasm]

7. I hope the prostitutes have legal and physical protection.

Doesn't sound like it. "Prostitution in Iran -- an Islamic theocracy -- is against the law. Harsh punishments for prostitutes as well as their customers include not just jail but execution"


If Iran needs to make an example, the outcome sounds horrible. My guess is a harsher penalty for the women involved.