Iran’s internet is broken and Kim Kardashian is getting the blame

The Iranian government’s arrest of fashion models with highly popular social media photo-sharing platforms is just the beginning of the regime’s latest crackdown on the Internet and any material deemed ‘un-Islamic.’

Eight models were arrested for allegedly posting photos without the mandatory hijab headscarf on Instagram, according to Tasnim news Sunday.

The Foreign Desk also viewed a broadcast where popular model and actress Elham Arab was subject to confessing that she had posted photos of herself online without hijab. In the interrogation, Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi asks her who was paying her for the endorsements and how the social media advertisement ‘system’ works.

But there’s a face behind the complex conspiracy to get young men and women hooked into a popular culture that is completely ‘un-Islamic,’ and that belongs to Kim Kardashian, according to a spokesperson for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Organized Cyberspace Crimes Unit.

Mostafa Alizadeh accused Kardashian of working for Instagram as part of a much larger plot to “target young people and women,” by brainwashing them with photos and selling a lifestyle that goes against the values of the Muslim faith.

“Ms. Kim Kardashian is a popular fashion model so Instagram’s C.E.O. tells her, ‘Make this native,’” Alizadeh said on an Iranian news program. “There is no doubt that financial support is involved as well. We are taking this very seriously.”

Last year, in an attempt to cut access to openly sexual photos online, the government blocked various Instagram accounts including those belonging to Justin Bieber, Kim Kardashian and Jennifer Lopez. They also cut access to fashion accounts such as Burberry, Gucci and Jimmy Choo, according to the Associated Press.

The names of the eight arrested models have not been released, but the hardline newspaper Sobh-e Now recently published an image showing the names of individuals it alleges are involved in fashion and modeling. Sobh-e Now’s editor-in-chief, Farshad Mehdipour, also lists “preventive actions” to help young people navigate social networks in a more ‘Islamically’ permissible way.