Iranian paper covers Baroness Ashton's cleavage

Baroness Ashton, in Iran for negotiations over its nuclear program, was given a less revealing outfit by a local newspaper. [BBC]

• [Anonymous]

  We need an animated gif of the cleavage area progressively filling up with black as if it was a liquid. Get to work graphic monkeys!

• [qatarperegrine]

  When I moved to Qatar 6 years ago they’d Sharpie out all the decolletage, shoulders and knees in movie posters and People magazine. That’s no longer the case, unless the supply chain includes Saudi, where this still happens.

  I always used to wonder who does the Sharpie-ing. I like to imagine a room full of men who are handed stacks of magazines and a lifetime supply of black markers, and told to black out anything that gives them haram thoughts.

• [Anonymous]

  I regularly correspond with Iran. Often when I send something with a picture that has a woman whose hair is showing I’ll receive the document back with a chador drawn on in black marker.

• [ultranaut]

  If she is too sexy for Iran they must produce the most boringly disturbing porn on earth.

  • [TheCrawNotTheCraw]

    “Slowly she removed her overcoat, revealing her fully-covered body beneath.”

• [Anonymous]

  I’m Swedish, I have a lot of fun (actually, sometimes it is rather terrifying, like when they remove the shade or bulb of a penis showing trough the trousers of someone, making all men look like Ken-dolls) when I read US newspapers and they airbrush away, black out or crop body parts that Swedish newspapers have no problem with showing (its like 30% of the the human body can never be shown in mainstream US media). To me, there is almost no difference between US news papers and Iranian when it comes to removing areas of skin, US papers are actually a lot worse when the areas of skin show signs of ageing. On the other hand, many photos and videos of acts of violence or degradation, that US media have no second thought of showing uncensored, would never be published in Swedish media, at least not without a warning so that sensitive people or children could avoid to see them.

  In the other end of the spectrum, some Italian and French news papers photoshop the penis contour of their president so that it look larger. I guess it is against their national pride to have presidents with small/normal peni. They usually also add, with photoshop, a few inches to their presidents height and shoulders when they meet dignitaries from countries where people are larger then the puny South Europeans.

• [chgoliz]

  I don’t know. As long as they accurately reported everything she said and did, and gave her full recognition for her professional achievements, I actually find this less offensive than female public figures being pressured into putting on a veil or other head covering (for example).

  She wasn’t forced to change anything about herself; the Iranian paper simply made an editorial decision after the fact that did not alter the actual news in the article.

• [dagfooyo]

  This looks like some idiotic censorship. I can tell by some of the pixels.

• [Brainspore]

  I hope the EU retaliates by digitally removing Ahmadinejad’s pants.

• [sbarnes2]

  I actually think the fake outfit looks more professional than the real one- boatnecks FTW!

• [the_dannobot]

  This is common practice in the middle east.

• [IronEdithKidd]

  I’m surprised they didn’t go whole nine yards and ‘shoop her into a turtle neck.

  Brainspore: FTW!

• [IsoTop]

  We have to thank this Iranian newspaper for their earthquake prevention initiative.

• [johnocomedy]

  Iran is finally moving into the 21st century. America did this almost 10 years ago when then Atty General John Ashcroft covered the exposed breast of a statue in the Dep’t of Justice.

  • [TheCrawNotTheCraw]

    But in Ashcroft’s “defense”, he did it because he couldn’t control his lustful thoughts, and copped a feel from the statue every time he passed.

    P.S. I don’t miss his horrible singing either.

    • [Donald Petersen]

      P.S. I don’t miss his horrible singing either.

      But he was such a comedy goldmine. We should have realized what lolz we’d be in for once he lost his Senate re-election bid to a dead man.

      The figleafing of the Spirit of Justice statue; Operation TIPS; the USA PATRIOT Act; “Let The Eagle Soar;” busting Tommy Chong; his barbershop quartet with wide-stancer Larry Craig, RINO tenor Jim Jeffords, and Dixiecrat apologist Trent Lott…

      Okay, some of those things were funnier than others.

• [jbresner]

  I think even the “original” Reuters image was photoshopped…take a look at this one: http://www.flickr.com/photos/10201288@N03/5392221848/

• [shaunoneil]

  Call me crazy, I don’t actually see the problem with this one. We regularly do it in the west too.

  Picture if you will, some A-list celeb has just had a dress malfunction on the red carpet. The picture we’re likely to see in tomorrow’s news isn’t going to anything as haraam / fcc-liable / indecent / won’t-someone-think-of-the-children as areolae. It’ll be blurred, covered with stars, the station’s logo, etc.

  They’re doing exactly the same thing we do. And with a lot more subtlety than we do.

  For all the things you could call Iran out on .. this? Really?

  • [Brainspore]

    The “subtlety” is exactly the problem- it’s censorship masquerading as journalism. If they blurred, pixelated or otherwise obscured the Baroness’ skin then at least there wouldn’t be any pretense as to what they were doing. As it stands they are presenting fiction as reality- which most people agree (in theory if not in practice) is a bad thing for journalists to do.

• [george57l]

  How about a point of view that says however alien or objectionable to our Western sensitivities this might be, perhaps the person who is the official foreign representative of the EU might have been better advised not to wear something likely to draw attention and possibly offend her host, whilst on a diplomatic mission?

  Had she done so, perhaps the diplomacy might have been the topic of comment and not the clothes or the picture.

  • [ultranaut]

    What’s wrong with offending prudes? It’s good for them.

• [Anonymous]

  I’m Iranian…but believe just few Iranian think like this…..actually we are hopping the wave of Tunisia arrive to Iran……if gov. doesn’t have any anti Tunisia’s vaccine :D we will win.

• [Crashproof]

  The Baroness is already pretty well covered.

  http://blastr.com/assets_c/2009/03/giJoe_baroness_Miller-thumb-560×368-14449.jpg

• [Mark Dow]

  It would be wise to censor all flesh tone pixels.

• [Teller]

  Tila T I could understand.

• [Godfree]

  I was going to comment but my head just exploded. BRB.

• [Suburbancowboy]

  They gave her a “Cami Secret”.

• [Anonymous]

  I first interpreted the word “cover” in the headline as referring to news coverage. That would have been an even more astonishing story.

• [seadigs]

  I initially read “covers” as referring to news coverage. That would have been even more astonishing.

• [autark]

  Given that the reason for covering women is supposedly because men cannot control their lustful thoughts… shouldn’t the proper covering be one put over men’s eyes?

• [mellowknees]

  Good lord. It’s not even cleavage. It’s just CHEST.

  • [Stooge]

    It’s just CHEST.

    I believe obverse décolletage is the correct term.
    The Wikipedia article on cleavage is an absolute goldmine of cleft-related knowledge.