Iranian police have arrested more than 260 people, including three European citizens, on suspicion of spreading satanism, the state-run IRNA news agency reported Friday.

The report said the suspects were arrested on Thursday night in Shahryar County, west of the capital of Tehran, for “spreading the culture of satanism and nudity.” It did not elaborate.

It was not clear how such a large number of arrests were made in one night — if the suspects were in one location, at some gathering or party, or not.

Gatherings where unrelated men and women are seen together are illegal in Iran and considered a sin under Islamic law.

  • stevedidwhat_infosec@infosec.pub
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    5 months ago

    I imagine this is what the GOP wants to see happen in the US.

    Imagine leaving one tyrant for their restrictions on your religion only to come back to reimplementing a few centuries later.

    Regressionists man.

    • Carmakazi@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      A lot of the pilgrims were the fundamentalist crazies that Europe didn’t want, and the towns they founded had laws like this and more.

      • stevedidwhat_infosec@infosec.pub
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        5 months ago

        Right but, before the declaration of independence and after are different stories

        Regardless, we shredded through a genocide to take the land away forcibly.

        We’ve been hypocrites since day one

      • Ranvier@sopuli.xyz
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        Yeah but it wasn’t just fundamentalist religious zealots. It was also a lot of corporations and capitalists determined to make a profit no matter what, even at the cost of great human suffering and they dragged over a bunch of indentured servants and slaves and oh wait I think this explains a lot about the US.

      • vaultdweller013@sh.itjust.works
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        5 months ago

        In the defense of those zealots, they eventually evolved into John Brown types and then even later on into modern progressive christians. The modern evangelical movement mostly evolved out of the southern churches which mostly organized to justify slaver and maintain the southern social order, which is a far cry from the egalitarian religious nutjobs of say the Massachusetts bay colony.

  • GloriousGouda
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    5 months ago

    It’s almost surreal reading how silly religious mythology is, and how silly it seems to even allow it in conversation about reality. But here we are. We’re still taking seriously the imaginary friends some dudes made up before we knew why it rained. And the humans in power still use those fictions to subjugate and control the masses.

          • GloriousGouda
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            5 months ago

            I replied to the wrong comment thread, my apologies. As for this one, I am not bound by a mythology that says “you shouldn’t judge”. As history keeps reminding us, religions and the subjugate nature of them, are the absolute worst thing to happen to humanity. I am going to judge those that keep spreading it’s lies.

              • GloriousGouda
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                5 months ago

                There’s zero fun in calling out the awful things that the xtian mythology alone has done, and conveniently forgiven itself for. ZERO fun is had by anyone but those wielding the hate, and bigotry. There’s centuries of bones buried that tell those stories.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      One likely fueling the other. Between the near open war with Israel and a satanic panic, I’m sure Iran was rife with conspiracy theory and QAnon style hysteria before their President pancaked into a mountain.

      I can’t imagine the reactionary elements in the country growing any less paranoid and superstitious in the wake of the crash.

  • Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Conservatives cannot resist harming, torturing or killing innocent, vulnerable people. This behavior is just unchecked conservatism doing what it naturally does.

    There is no such thing as a “good conservative”. There never has been.

  • Jafoo@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    Was anyone else aware that nudity isn’t simply a case of undress, but a virus, which can be spread like chickenpox? I sure as hell wasn’t, prior to reading this story

      • Jafoo@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        “Soon, millions across the land will be showering, sleeping, and fucking, all without any clothes on. It’ll be the worst human catastrophe since The Black Plague swept across the medieval world!!!”

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            5 months ago

            First they came for low rise jeans, and I did not speak out—because I’m more of a breast man than an ass man

            Then they came for the mini-skirts, and I did not speak out—because I don’t wear skirts myself

            Then they came for the bikini, and I did not speak out—because the corner of the globe I live in has 3 distinct seasons, and I don’t currently live near the shore

            Then they kicked in the door while I was showering, and hauled me off to prison—and there was no one left to speak for me, or practicioners of nudity more generally

      • Jafoo@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Emily Ratajkowski has BEEN so afflicted for over a decade now. Hasn’t prevented anyone from eyeing her up and down

      • Jafoo@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Damn straight!!! Roe V Wade getting the chop here in The US has just exacerbated this plague even further

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Satanic Panic has a strong 1980s vibe. A country the size and industrial scale of Germany with the politics of the West Texas town of Bomont from the movie Footloose.

  • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    A nice reminder that we’d all be better off without Iran’s theocracy which supports terrorists for proxy fights. A democratic Republic by and for the Iranian people would be a major step towards lasting peace in the middle east

    • prole@sh.itjust.works
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      5 months ago

      Yeah if only they had their own secular, democratically elected leaders. And maybe those leaders could even decide to nationalize their oil.

      What could possibly go wrong for them?

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        Nassar’s Egypt, Mosaddegh’s Iran, Sankara’s Burkino Faso, Obote’s Uganda, Lumumba’s Congo, Trujillo’s Dominican Republic, Sukarno’s Indonesia (Read the Jakarta Method folks), Goulart’s Brazil, Arbenz’s Guatamala, Guardia’s Costa Rica, Allende’s Chile…

        I don’t know what it is, but democratically elected leaders in countries that pursued an unaligned status just have a habit of getting couped by reactionary members of their militaries for some crazy reason.

    • Miaou@jlai.lu
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      5 months ago

      Stop using the word democratic to mean western aligned. The west has no trouble financing terrorist groups, and the reason democratic countries cannot stay so if they don’t bend to Washington is not happenstance. The first step to a democratic Iran might well be a USA civil war.

      • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        No I legitimately mean a democracy by and for the people. If they decide they want to be in opposition to the West, I’m totally fine with that. That’s the whole point of self sovereignty. I just want the people to decide their own fates, because by all accounts, the theocracy and misogyny and brutal crackdown on protests are not popular.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          5 months ago

          If they decide they want to be in opposition to the West, I’m totally fine with that.

          I’m sure you would, but the Allen Dulles Fan Club in Langley might feel otherwise.

          I just want the people to decide their own fates

          We don’t get to decide our own fates. You think you just fell out of a coconut tree? You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you.

          One consequence of the chronic paranoia and endless infighting created by persistent foreign infiltration, sabotage, and “regime change” efforts is a very closely knit administrative body. Theocracies form out of the heat and pressure of these outside forces, as locals lean into superstition and xenophobia to insulate them from outside agitators.

          If you want the hedgehog to uncurl, maybe stop poking it with a fucking stick.

            • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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              5 months ago

              I mean, I’m a Houstonian in a liberal neighborhood and I have to search to find folks who are big fans of the Greg Abbott regime. But if I move a county over, I find them in spades.

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
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      5 months ago

      Only if there were no Israel/Turkey/Azerbaijan. Iran is actually a stabilizing factor in the sense that it opposes that evil.

      • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        I’m guessing you also think the Houthi rebels had the moral high ground in attacking commercial civilian ships of African and Asian workers?

          • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
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            5 months ago

            Oh that totally justifies attacking civilians and workers on cargo ships, good point! Poor brown people who aren’t related to the blockade should have to suffer to stick it to Saudi Arabia and the West.

            /s

            • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
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              5 months ago

              If blockade hurts Saudis and the West enough to raise Houthis’ chances of survival, it’s justified. Sarcastic tone is not an argument and I’m not your enemy.

  • secretlyaddictedtolinux@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    I am guessing “satanism and nudity” means LGBT people, and I am guessing it means a gathering of gay people, most of them dressed but some shirtless.

    • Allero@lemmy.today
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      5 months ago

      Men and women were equally represented, so that must’ve been a gathering of all if that’s the case.

      • secretlyaddictedtolinux@lemmy.world
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        5 months ago

        there could be lesbians there. i still think “satanism and nudity” probably means they are arresting LGBT people, but it’s hard to know

  • LostWon@lemmy.ca
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    5 months ago

    I’ve been meaning to look into the history of how the secular left was crushed in much of the Middle East. Thanks for the reminder.

  • whotookkarl@lemmy.world
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    5 months ago

    The sex obsessed wet blankets in the clergy morality police probably shut down a concert or dance hall they weren’t invited to where people were actually having fun.