NINA Siahkali Moradi, an Iranian woman who won the city elections of Qazvin, has been disqualified on the grounds that she was ‘too beautiful’ for the post.

Nina, a 27-year-old graduate student of architecture, had got 10,000 votes in the city election in June placing her 14th out of the 163 candidates, granting her a standby seat in the city council.

Despite that, election officials disqualified her on the grounds that she was ‘too beautiful’ and that she was ‘not observing Islamic codes’.

“We don’t want a catwalk model on the council,” said one senior official in Qazvin, explaining the decision to the local press. The official added that her election-campaign posters were the basis for her disqualification.

However, the election-campaign posters of Nina showed her in a hijab without even a single hair being on display. But for Qazvin’s religious groups, the posters were considered too racy.

Nina has found her political career cut short after religious conservatives overturned her election to the city council in Qazvin, the ancient capital of the Persian Empire, northwest of Tehran.

Under the slogan ‘Young ideas for a young future’, she demanded more rights for women in Qazvin, Her liberal stance appeared to strike a chord with the electorate.

In a letter to the governor of Qazvin, a coalition of religious groups condemned Ms Moradi’s ‘vulgar and anti-religious posters’, which they said breached Islamic law. The complaint was challenged, but in the end she was disqualified for not ‘observing Islamic norms’.

When I read the story of her disqualification, I wondered whether beauty was a crime or a sin! Every human being likes beauty in nature and admires everything beautiful but not so in Iran where mullahs defeated nature.

Now mullahs seem to be imposing their will on others which is absolutely unfair and unjust.

ISRAR SINDHI
Islamabad