[lbo-talk] Protectionism Iranian Style

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

> The Asian Age
>
> 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,"  
> MrAhmadinejad 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)

Yoshie Furuhashi
<http://montages.blogspot.com>
<http://monthlyreview.org>
<http://mrzine.org>
* Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: <http://montages.blogspot.com/2005/07/mahmoud- 
ahmadinejads-face.html>;  <http://montages.blogspot.com/2005/07/chvez- 
congratulates-ahmadinejad.html>; <http://montages.blogspot.com/ 
2005/06/iranian-working-class-rejects.html>