Female Politician Banned in Iran for being too Beautiful

Too Beautiful to Serve
Nina Siakhali Moradi

A female politician in Iran who won an election to the City Council of the Iranian municipality of Qazvin some few weeks ago, has been barred from from holding office and her results overturned, because the mostly male Islamic authorities in her country think she is too beautiful!

 In the ultra-conservative Islamic country, women are expected to cover their faces in order not to attract unwanted attention and for fear of the morality police. However, a candidate running for office has to let people know who she is and cannot campaign with her face behind a veil. 

Unfortunately for Nina Siakhali Moradi,  the 27 year old Architecture student from Qazvin, the capital of the ancient Persian empire just 100 miles from the Iranian Capital Tehran, she was just too beautiful for the mostly male religious authorities, who view her as a negative and evil influence.

How Would you Know this Candidate

The new Iranian President  Hassan Rowhani, had promised during his campaign to improve the civil rights of women in the country, and this action by the ultra-conservative authorities in Qazvin is bound to test his commitment to that pledge. According to reports reaching the Segbwema Blog from Tehran via social media, many people would be observing whether President Rowhani would stand by his election pledge of promoting the rights of women or avoid infuriating the powerful authorities in his country, some of who think that their country was still isolated in the 12th century.

In objection to the election of Nina Siakhali Moradi, one member of Qazin's city council sad that they do not want "a catwalk model" on their city council, a statement indicative of the backward view of women among the men of the Persian Country. 

In some Islamic countries, women are treated as if they were just pieces of property or second class humans. The former Taliban government in Afghanistan banned the education of women and even in countries with close relationships to the West, such as Saudi Arabia, women are not even allowed to drive. In other countries a woman who is raped, is expected to marry her rapist or face serious consequences from the society. Some societies even go as far as engaging in infanticide to avoid raising female children.

In many areas of nuclear armed Pakistan, women are exchanged as if they were agricultural commodities by their families, especially in the Pashtun areas bordering the perennially troubled country of Afghanistan. It was in these areas that a young school girl Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head by Pakistani elements of the Taliban for the sole reason that she wrote on a blog advocating for the education of women, under a pseudonym.

Malala Yousafzai 

In Qazvin the reason given for the disqualification of Ms. Moradi by her representative in parliament was that the review board had not approved her credentials. However, both Iran's judiciary and Intelligence services had granted her approval to run, as is the custom in Iran where even candidates for President have to be approved by the country's ultra conservative Shiite authorities. Even during her campaign, conservative groups that had not expected her to win had attack her posters for being anti-Islamic, unholy and vulgar. The fact that she had run as an Independent candidate also did not help her cause.

Many youths in the country and other people around the world wonder why beauty should be seen as anti-religious, when the candidate was made beautiful by none other than the Almighty God himself. Others are wondering whether men that are attracted to beautiful women who are not their wives have to blame the women or have to blame themselves for being simply being weak idiots with a dirty imagination.

As a person who believes in equal rights for women, even when I was growing up in my small country of Sierra Leone, I believe that societies that prevent the progress of women are doing a major injustice to the entire human race. I think these societies need to move into the modern age and realize that women are every bit as valuable as men, if not even better. Most of the heinous acts in the history of human civilization have been carried out by men, and societies where women have influence are more caring and peaceful, as women have the natural ability to make decisions, free from the influence of testosterone, the main hormone responsible for aggressiveness in men in combination with adrenaline.

Sheku Sheriff

Segbwema Blogger