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The Iran Porn Video
Early this year, The Daily Beast was banned from the country for re-posting a viral video sensation in Iran: hidden camera footage of an Iranian cleric committing adultery.
Plus, read more insight on Iran's election from other Daily Beast writers.
A video scandal has hit the Iranian Internet scene. Like many online scandals in the West, it involves a model. Not Paris Hilton, but a supposed model of virtue: a cleric.
In the video—for weeks voted the top story on Balatarin.com (an Iranian version of Digg.com)—a robed cleric is caught on a hidden camera in a private room. He walks to the door to let a chador-clad woman enter.
“Nobody saw you come in, did they?” he asks her lightheartedly. As she removes her chador, he continues in the same tone: “Want to do some Nasnas?”
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Iranians know Nasnas as a mythological monster. What the cleric means by “do some Nasnas” is clarified by what happens next in the clip. Americans have a similar expression: the beast with two backs.
The cleric was apparently a member of the government-run Friday Prayers Committee in Hamadan province. Semi-official news sites tried to downplay the impact of the video, which leaked out of an Intelligence Ministry investigation. But their reports did acknowledge that the man involved was a married cleric, and that the video depicts the consummation of an unlawful affair.
“One thing we had never seen before was a cleric’s naked butt,” reads one online comment. “Thanks to the Internet, that is no longer impossible!”
“One thing we had never seen before was a cleric’s naked butt,” commented one young Iranian below the online video clip. “Thanks to the Internet, that is no longer impossible!”
Of course, it is hardly news that hormones do not always heed titular expectations, but this is the first video evidence of a cleric’s misbehavior to spread publicly. Iranians’ glee at exposing such hypocrisy, however, is tinged by another sentiment: anger.
Many remember how last year—ironically in the same province of Hamadan—a medical student was arrested by the “Morality Patrol” for sitting with her fiancé in a public park. When her family was finally allowed to visit her 48 hours later, they were asked to remove her lifeless body. Police claimed she had hanged herself in the temporary detention centre, and the state blocked an investigation by warning that any discussion “would only give the enemy’s propagandists their much-needed opportunity to attack us.”
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selam
THIS IS A GREAT ARTICLE!
I have so much hope for the younger generation of Iran. The religious clerics who run their country are hopefully a dying breed. The story about the girl who was killed for sitting with her fiance is a key example of what happens when people "ordained by God" run a country.
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Stuff like this is what forces me to subscribe to the idea of not believing what the world, old or new, have to offer in any shape, way or form. The hypocrisy has run ramped in many fashion of our existence, including and especially religion. Man offers nothing, but suffering under the pretense of serving a higher power to gain his and spread his own interest, negligence and power around the world for thousands of years.
Men of God from all confessions have found common ground: Their humanity.
the internet: the new bathroom wall.
In any language, the description of this clip is "Eeeeeeeeeew!"
It's no surprise,either, that those who make the most noise about morality are often keeping a "second set of books" when it comes to their own.
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That this is even a story is why Religion and Government should never be mixed. I hope both of these people are alive and well. However, it seems that it is always the woman who pays the ultimate price in any religious government. Religion in all forms is notoriously unfair to women, and used to keep women without power.
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An ex-girlfriend of mine has a father who left Iran and came her (Europe) in the early 70ies. She has still a lot of relatives in Iran and visits the countr 1-2 times a year.
What she told me about the Iran changed my view about this country:
Since there is a new generation the people in the cities - especially the young people and especially in Teheran - are very unhappy with the very corrupt funtamentalist regime.
The people in the cities are actually very liberal, like western music and would like to wear western clothes while religious conservatives are dominant in the rural regions (you can call it the "koran belt").
The Mullahs are actually very unpopular in the population, because they are said to be very corrupt.
Ahmadinejad has to cultivate the "enemies from the outside" by threatening and talking BS to keep the own people down.
Actually there would have been an uprising years ago - but right in time Bush did his stupid "axis of evil"-speech and managed to unify the Iranian people.
So corrupt right-wing religious conservatives holding down the liberals and a president who's always threatening and talking about war to scare his own people.
Sounds familiar?
Oh I am sure the girl will be Put to Death!
The poor cleric will get a Stern talking to, or perhaps a female relative will also have to pay for his indiscretions!
wow, people like to have sex? i never knew that. i thought that americans and europeans were just immoral infidel sinners. it's a conspiracy! an american has dressed like a cleric and made nasnas with an iranian woman! burn the american flag in the streets!
well,,, in every religion, there will always be some followers who behave against their religion rule. They disrespect the value of their faith. The wrongdoing might comes from "animal instinct" because man is only a human. But often, someone is being a hypocrite. Evil behind the angel face. Some even use their beliefs on religion as a mask to justify their deeds
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There was a very lively street traffic in Royal and Aristo porn prior to the French Revolution. A rather vast number of cartoon depictions of Royals engaged in sex with each other, orgies, bestiality ... name it, were extremely popular. Degrading oppressors before toppling them is an ancient way (very popular in Rome) of paving the way for revolution. Perhaps it's on its way.
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