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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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strangeboy
Recipe: Add equal parts of Hypocrisy and Sexual Repression, cover with a large dose of Religious Fanaticism. Pop it in the oven and broil for a minimum of 1,000 years to remove any hint of Gender Equality. Lightly stir and serve over a warm bed of Ignorance.
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masoud
aaz man to
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zbeckham
selam
jaclynde
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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n--Y--toodogsThis comment has been removed by The Daily Beast's editors.
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Uganie
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.
pelican75
Men of God from all confessions have found common ground: Their humanity.
angryman
the internet: the new bathroom wall.
spinozareader
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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