March 17, 2008	Monday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 8, 1429

TEHRAN: Iran has banned nine lifestyle and cinema magazines for publishing pictures of “corrupt” foreign film stars and details about their “decadent” private lives, the student ISNA news agency said on Sunday.

The publications were banned by the press commission watchdog for “publishing photographs of corrupt foreign artists and details about their decadent lives.” They were also “publishing advertising for forbidden medicines and articles that were contrary to morality and offensive to the ethnic minorities,” the agency quoted the commission as saying.

The most significant magazines banned are Donya-ye Tasvir (World of the Image), Sobh-i-Zendegi (Morning of Life), Talash (Effort) and Haft (Seven). The commission also gave warnings to 13 other publications.

Such magazines regularly print articles and pictures of foreign film stars, as well as of Iranian actresses in the kinds of loose headscarves and tight-fitting clothes that are frowned upon by the Islamic authorities.

The latest issue of Donya-ye Tasvir carried articles about several Hollywood female stars including Naomi Watts, Reese Witherspoon and Nicole Kidman, all accompanied by pictures.

Iranian actresses have to observe the country’s Islamic dress rules when they appear in films but this has not stopped many from becoming feminine screen icons in the Islamic republic.

Iran’s film industry is one of its most treasured cultural assets and pictures by its greatest directors such as Abbas Kiarostami or Jafar Panahi have won international awards at prestigious festivals.

However the arthouse films so popular in the West often fail to win a license for being shown in Iran, where all films must be approved before screening to ensure they are in line with Islamic cultural standards.

In Tehran there are only a handful of cinemas which offer a selective screening of foreign movies, which are subject to heavy censorship of any scenes where actresses are scantly dressed.

Developments in cinema at home and abroad are followed by a myriad of glossy magazines, which are required reading for young culture connoisseurs.

Dozens of newspapers and magazines have been banned in Iran in recent years after the media industry flourished in the early years of the rule of reformist president Mohammad Khatami.—AFP