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In the latest salvo in a more than decade-old government campaign against Barbie, Prosecutor General Ghorban Ali Dori Najafabadi said in an official letter to Vice-President Parviz Davoudi that the doll and other western toys are a "danger" that need to be stopped.
"The irregular importation of such toys, which unfortunately arrive through unofficial sources and smuggling, is destructive culturally and a social danger," said the letter, a copy of which was made available to The Associated Press.
Iranian markets have been inundated with smuggled western toys in recent years partly due to a dramatic rise in purchasing power as a result of increased oil revenues.
While importing the toys is not necessarily illegal, it is discouraged by a government that seeks to protect Iranians from what it calls the negative effects of western culture.
Najafabadi said the increasing visibility of western dolls has alarmed authorities and they are considering intervening.
"The displays of personalities such as Barbie, Batman, Spiderman and Harry Potter ... as well as the irregular importation of unsanctioned computer games and movies are all warning bells to the officials in the cultural arena," his letter said.
Najafabadi said Iran is the world's third biggest importer of toys and warned that smuggled imports pose a threat to the "identity" of the new generation.
Mattel Inc., the maker of Barbie, had no immediate comment Monday on the Iranian action.
Barbie is sold wearing swimsuits and miniskirts in a society where women must wear headscarves in public and men and women are not allowed to swim together.
In 1996, the head of a government-backed children's agency called Barbie a "Trojan horse" sneaking in western influences such as makeup and revealing clothes.
Authorities launched a campaign of confiscating Barbies from shops in 2002, denouncing the un-Islamic sensibilities of the iconic American doll. But the campaign was eventually dropped.
Also in 2002, Iran introduced its own competing dolls - the twins Dara and Sara - who were designed to promote traditional values with their modest clothing and pro-family stories. But the dolls proved unable to stem the Barbie tide.
As the West imposes the toughest ever sanctions on Iran and tensions rise over its nuclear program, inside the country the Barbie ban is part of what the government calls a “soft war” against decadent cultural influences.Iran’s morality police are cracking down on the sale of Barbie dolls to protect the public from what they see as pernicious western culture eroding Islamic values, shopkeepers said on Monday.
As the West imposes the toughest ever sanctions on Iran and tensions rise over its nuclear program, inside 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,” said a shopkeeper in a toy shop in northern Tehran.
Iran’s religious rulers first declared Barbie, made by U.S. 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 to counter demand for Barbie have not proven successful, merchants told Reuters.
The dolls named Sara, a female, and Dara, a male arrived in shops wearing a variety of traditional dress, with Sara fully respecting the rule that all women in Iran must obey in public, of covering their hair and wearing loose-fitting clothes.
“My daughter prefers Barbies. She says Sara and Dara are ugly and fat,” said Farnaz , a 38-year-old mother, adding that she could not find Barbie cartoon DVDs as she was told they were also banned from public sale.
Pointing to a doll covered in black long veil, a 40-year-old 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.”
Iran has fought a running battle to purge pervasive western culture from the country since its Islamic revolution overthrew a western-backed king in 1979, enforcing Islamic dress codes, banning Western music and foreign satellite television.
As another swipe at the West, Iranians will soon be able to buy toy versions of the U.S. 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 colours, reports said.
Police have closed down dozens of toy stores that have been selling the blond icon and confiscated the dolls as tensions continue to increase with the west, the semi-official Mehr news agency announced Friday, according to the Associated Press.
The government believes that toys like Barbies are the West's attempt to infiltrate the company's culture.
Shopkeepers told Reuters that the crackdown has been going on for weeks in what the Mehr news agency said was a "new phase" of its Barbie ban enforcement.
"About three weeks ago they came to our shop asking us to remove all the Barbies," one shopkeeper said.
The doll has technically been held in unfavorable light by the countries' religious leaders since 1996 but the ban has only been enforced in recent months, much to the dismay of many Iranian children who are left with the option of two dolls approved by the government in 2002, Dara and Sara.
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