Iranian vice-president under fire over dancing video

Jan 3, 2007, 13:39 GMT

Tehran - Iranian Vice-President Esfandiar Rahim-Mashaie has come under fire over a video which shows him watching and applauding women dancing during a ceremony in Istanbul, the Tehran media reported Wednesday.

Two parliament deputies had come up with a video showing the deputy and close aide to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad allegedly amusing himself while watching the dancing women during the ceremony last year.

Under Islamic rules, men are not allowed to watch strange women dancing and women are not allowed to dance in front of strange men.

'In a clear smear campaign,' the vice-president told the Fars news agency.

'I am charged to have attended a private party although it was an official cultural ceremony in Istanbul attended by the city's mayor and the secretary general of the Organization of the Islamic Conference,' he added.

Rahim-Mashaie, who is also head of the tourism organization, said that he and the consul were attending the ceremony as officials of Iran, adding that while Tehran had problems with dancing, many other Islamic countries did not have this approach any longer.

The vice-president has already sued the two MPs over the video- tape and rejected their demand for his resignation.

'My stance is the same as Ahmadinejad and the best defence by the president is keeping me as his deputy as I have never been to a dancing party in my life,' Rahim-Mashaie said. 'Even before the (1979 Islamic) revolution I was reciting (the holy Muslim book) Koran and I will stay committed to Islam until the end of my life.'

Rahim-Mashaie accused some political factions of a smear campaign against the Ahmadinejad administration and trying to expose the conservative president and his men as acting contrary to their moral preachments.