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.

  • Miaou
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    6 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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      6 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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        6 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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            6 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.