21 October 2005
Iran bans films deemed feminist & pro-America
- By Siavosh Ghazi
Tehran: Iran's Islamic regime has slapped a ban on foreign films deemed to be "feminist", "secular" or pro-American, with hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also pushing his vision of a Quranic society.
A ruling by the Supreme Cultural Revolution Council, a watchdog headed by Mr Ahmadinejad, bans "the distribution and screening of foreign films which promote secular, feminist, liberal or nihilist ideas and degrade oriental culture." Also forbidden are movies that feature "violence, narcotics consumption and propaganda for the world oppression," a term reserved for arch-enemy the US, the Shargh newspaper said on Thursday. The report said the directive has been widely circulated, especially within the ministry of culture and Islamic guidance and state television and radio.
"The Iranian people have a mission to create, on this sacred Iranian ground, an ideal society founded on the Quran," Mr Ahmadinejad was also quoted as telling a local gathering titled, "Servants of the Quran." He promised his government, less than three months into its four-year mandate, would "favour the spread of a Quranic culture."
Under Mr Ahmadinejad's reformist predecessor Mohammad Khatami, a mild-mannered cleric and a lover of all things cultural, Iran had partially opened its doors to certain Western films. (AFP)