Film Award Ceremony Organizers Arrested in Iran
September 27th, 2004 by Andre Soares
Iranian President Mohammad Khatami and several Iranian filmmakers have condemned the arrest of the organizers of a film award ceremony that has enraged religious fanatics in the theocratic Iranian government. Khatami has warned that such moves will force Iranian intellectuals to flee the country.
The festival organizers were arrested by Iran’s "moral police," who were reportedly answering complaints that several attendees failed to abide by that country’s strict Islamic dress code. One of the arrestees, Abolhasan Davoodi, head of the non-governmental Cinema House, was sent to a Teheran hospital with suspected heart failure following police interrogation.
The complaints against the festival came mainly from two radical Muslim newspapers, Jomhuri Islami and Kayhan, which displayed photographs of several women at the festival wearing flimsy head scarves and lots of makeup.
According to the Agence France-Presse, Iran’s hardline judiciary has announced that it will "detoxify" the country’s film industry by eliminating "corrupt" artists.
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