The World - News from Aug. 5, 1988

Flesh peddling and drug pushing have made a comeback in Tehran, prompting a crackdown by Iran’s Islamic fundamentalist leaders, according to news reports. More than 3,000 prostitutes, drug addicts and pushers were arrested during a recent sweep in the capital’s resurgent red-light district, the reports said. The daily newspaper Kayhan quoted Interior Minister Ali Akbar Mohtashemi as saying that the area has been cut off from the city by a high wall, pending the demolition of its buildings. Iran’s official Islamic Republic News Agency had said the district “poses a threat to the morality of the city as a whole,” the newspaper reported.