This story originated on Gulf News Online, but I heard about it through BoingBoing and New World Disorder:
Fighting against what clerics call “penetrating Western culture” with a crackdown on icons of America, Iran’s hardline judiciary has launched a campaign to confiscate all U.S.-made Barbie dolls in Tehran.
Recently Moral Police have stepped up arrest and harassment of shopkeepers for selling Barbie dolls and whatever decorated with different shapes of Barbie and its image which are immensely used by school children.
Tehran Judicial Department has arrested many of Barbie traders and shopkeepers mainly in Tehran and other places accusing them for spreading obscene Western cultures since last month.
I’m intrigued by something in the lede: Why “U.S.-made Barbie dolls”? I mean, I understand why they might want Barbie dolls out of the culture. And I understand why they might want U.S.-made goods gone, too. But why specifically “U.S.-made Barbie dolls”? Would Taiwan-manufactured Barbies be less of an anathema? Or are we just knocking up against less-than-fully conversational English?
