Barbie (Archives)
Iran bars Barbie doll sales
Tehran decides to cracks down on moral perils in society by banning sale of popular toy
Iran's morality police are waging a new fight against promiscuity – as represented by Barbie dolls.
Tehran authorities are cracking down on the sale of Barbie dolls to protect the public from what they see as "pernicious western culture eroding Islamic values," Iranian shopkeepers said on Monday.
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The country the Barbie ban is part of what the government calls a "soft war" against decadent cultural influences.
"About three weeks ago they (the morality police) came to our shop, asking us to remove all the Barbies," a shopkeeper in a toy shop in northern Tehran said.
Not as popular. The sanctions Barbies (Archives: Mansur Mothamdi)
Iran's religious rulers first declared Barbie, made by US company Mattel Inc, un-Islamic in 1996, citing its "destructive cultural and social consequences." Despite the ban, the doll has until recently been openly on sale in Tehran shops.
The new order, issued around three weeks ago, forced shopkeepers to hide the leggy, busty blonde behind other toys as a way of meeting popular demand for the dolls while avoiding being closed down by the police.
A range of officially approved dolls launched in 2002 – wearing a variety of traditional dress in respect of the rule that all women in Iran must obey in public, of covering their hair and wearing loose-fitting clothes – have not proven successful.
Pointing to a doll covered in black long veil, a Tehran toy shop manager said: "We still sell Barbies but secretly and put these in the window to make the police think we are just selling these kinds of dolls."
As another swipe at the West, Iranians will soon be able to buy toy versions of the US spy drone that it captured in December, Iranian media reported.
Models of the bat-wing RQ-170 Sentinel - which Iran's military displayed on TV after it was downed near the Afghan border - will be mass produced in a variety of colors, reports said.
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