After Taliban, Iran bans women from appearing in ads to protect Islamic values

 Iran's Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance has banned women from appearing in advertisements as it seeks to tighten the country's hijab and chastity laws.

The ministry informed advertising agencies in a letter that women were now banned from acting in all kinds of commercials and commercials, Radio Free Europe reported. The directive came soon after a controversial ad – featuring a woman in a loose hijab biting into a magnum ice cream – caused outrage and outrage among Iran's radical Islamist leaders.

The ad angered Iranian clerics who urged authorities to prosecute local ice cream maker Domino's. Officials ruled that the ad went "against public decency" and was an "insult" of "women's values".

Iran's Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance has written a letter to the country's art and cinema schools, reportedly stating that according to "hijab and chastity rules", women are no longer allowed to appear in advertisements.

The ban is based on Iran's rules and regulations relating to commercial advertisements, which prohibit "musical use" of not only women but also children and men. The interpretation of "instrumental experiment" depends on how strict the ruling administration is at a given point in time.

As of the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini ordered female civil servants to wear chadar which later became mandatory for all women in Iran.

However, over the years, dozens of Iranian women have been detained for protesting the country's obligatory wearing of the hijab.