Iran Arrests Fashion Models on Social Media

It appears that Iran has attempted to launch a social media crackdown by arresting a number of fashion models active on social media photo sharing sites, and also the manager of a blog. The crackdown came following the vow of Tehran’s top leader who recently declared war on un-Islamic thoughts on the internet.

It was reported on Sunday by a Tasnim news agency that a modelling network has had eight of its members arrested. The models face accusations of publishing photographs of women who were not wearing the hijab headscarf, which is compulsory by law, on the hugely popular photo sharing site Instagram. Elham Arab, one of the models, has been accused of ‘promoting Western promiscuity’ and was charged by Iran’s Revolutionary Court on Monday. She was later forced to issue a public apology.

The news came alongside a report from semi-official student news agency ISNA, which claimed that Mehdi Butorabi, the 53-year-old manager of ‘Persian Blog’, was also arrested. The blog is said to have provided a platform where young Iranians could freely express their thoughts and feelings.

The recent crackdown on social media has taken place in spite of Iran’s current blocks on social media sites Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, as millions of Iranians are still accessing the sites through the use of Virtual Private Networks. In fact, the Revolutionary Guard Corps have actually established an elite branch to deal with such social media use; the Centre for Investigation of Organised Crime attempts to deal with the matter by monitoring social media for evidence of subversion or ‘immorality.’

The supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is reported to have said on Saturday that the internet was a source of promoting un-Islamic thought and should be dealt with promptly.