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Iranian 'cuckold' actors lash out in defense of their wives

Iranian hard-line weekly Ya Lesarat al-Hussein is once again in hot water — this time for insulting Iranian actors over the way their wives dress.
Actor Shahab Hosseini, Best Actor award winner for his role in the film "Forushande" (The Salesman), poses during a photocall after the closing ceremony of the 69th Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France, May 22, 2016.  REUTERS/Jean-Paul Pelissier  - RTSFFGB

TEHRAN, Iran — Iranian weekly Ya Lesarat al-Hussein (Those Who Want to Avenge the Blood of [Shiite Imam] Hussein) is once again in hot water — this time over a controversial headline about Iranian actors. On July 6, it ran a full page with pictures of actors next to their wives at the Hafez Film Festival, accompanied by a short piece titled “Who is the 'dayuth' [cuckold]?” The story goes on to explain that a dayuth — which is a particularly vulgar word in Persian — is a man who is oblivious to his spouse’s sexual relations with other men, in a seeming critical reference to the way the actors’ wives dressed.

Ya Lesarat al-Hussein belongs to the hard-line Ansar-e Hezbollah, a group that has always been controversial over its positions in Iranian politics.

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