ISLAMIC SOCIAL RESTRICTIONS SKYROCKETING AIDS IN IRAN

At Columbia, Ahmadi-Nejad denied there were homosexuals in Iran but more and more men are becoming infected with HIV! Traditionally, there has always been a tendency for same sex relationships among the sexes in the early years of their lives in an Islamic country, even a liberal one like Iran in the time of the late-Shah. It was much less complicated to have a physical relationship with someone of your own gender than to deal with the restrictions on dating - generally forbidden. Girls would gather in groups or pairs "to study" and dabble in sex. Boys avoided unwanted pregnancies or accusations of intercourse and the ensuing forced marriage (at best) or jail. Clerics always had a reputation of diddling young boys and girls. Or seducing older girls or their mothers into sexual relationships under the cloak of their religious status. Since interaction with girls has become almost impossible in the Islamic Iran of the Mullahs, the only sex easily available to religious students is among themselves and their Mullahs. Tehran, 11 Jan (AKI) - In the past year, the incidence of AIDS has doubled in the holy Shia city of Qom, second only to the Iraqi city of Najaf in religious significance. "The great share of the newly infected have contracted the HIV virus, not through using infected syringes, but through unprotected sexual relations," said Amir, Akbari, director of the city's health centre. In the past year the number of those affected by AIDS in Qom has risen from 177 to 324. Forty per cent of those infected are students from the theological colleges in Qom. In Iran, according to official estimates, there are more than 16,000 infected with AIDS in the country, while non-government organisations put the total number above 100,000.

Alan Note: With enormous drug use (estimated at some 30% of the country addicted !!!!) and heroin and use of needles rampant, private estimates put the AIDS figure closer to several hundred thousand.