By Iran has recently stepped up their culture cop game, sending bunches of undercover police into communities to enforce modest behavior, like the country’s dress code, which includes mandatory hijab for women.
The agency tasked with policing domestic culture and thwarting the influence of other nations–particularly Western influence–is the Revolutionary Guards Corp, and they’ve recently named an unlikely threat to national security: Kim Kardashian, and her weapons of mass destruction seduction.
They’re extremely concerned about Kardashian’s social media popularity; so much so, they’ve accused Kim of being a secret agent.
A report from the Iran Wire featured the Guards’ Organized Cyberspace Crimes Unit accusing Kim K of working for Instagram as part of an intricate and villainous plot to “target young people and women,” corrupting them with seductive photos that depict a lifestyle at odds with Islamic values.
The spokesman for the group, Mostafa Alizadeh, took to an Iranian news program to further speak of Iran’s disdain for Kim and all things Kardashian. “Ms. Kim Kardashian is a popular fashion model, so Instagram’s C.E.O. tells her, ‘Make this native.’ There is no doubt that financial support is involved as well. We are taking this very seriously.”
Kardashian’s paternal grandparents were Armenian immigrants; Armenia shares a border with Iran.
Instagram declined to comment on the incident.
Although the idea of “secret agent” Kim Kardashian is absurdly laughable, and sounds like a joke, social media mis-steps are no laughing matter in Iran.
Recently, one famous Iranian entertainer was featured in what looks to be a forced confession, and the Revolutionary Guards say they’ve targeted 170 individuals–makeup artists, photographers, models, and others–for their immodest social media content. Twenty-nine of the 170 individuals are slated for prosecution.
This comes as part of what the Cyberspace Crimes Unit calls “Operation Spider 2,” a long-standing effort to eliminate what Iran considers to be illicit Instagram and Facebook use. The Iran Wire reports that the Cyberspace Crimes Unit has claimed to arrest the individuals behind over 350 Facebook pages that were “promoting a culture of promiscuity, weakening and rejecting the institution of family, ridiculing religious values and beliefs, promoting relationships outside moral rules, and publishing the private pictures of young women.”
Some of the targeted Instagram accounts are still online, but their owners have left Iran, with a few taking up residence in Dubai, where their glamorous–and hijab-free–lifestyles can go unchecked.