Iran Sex and Alcohol Survey Shocks Police Chief

Iranian police chief Ahmadi Moghadam said he would resign if anyone proved that the results of a recent survey were accurate.

The University of Tehran survey found that 80 percent of Iranian students drink alcohol and have friendships with the opposite sex, according to CNN. Both activities are illegal under Iran's conservative legal code.

These findings have no basis and if such things are true, I will resign from my post, Ahmadi Moghadam said, according to the Iranian Labour News Agency.

The survey did not mention the sample size nor the age range of those questioned. Moghadam blasted the results as bogus, and promised to leave his post if they were proven, presumably because it would mean that he had failed at his job.

The report that 80 percent of males and females have relations goes against the moral fabric of our society, ILNA quoted the police chief as saying.

If relations are made through deception we will immediately get involved since committing sexual violations calls for the highest punishment.

The prohibition of allowing boys and girls to be friendly has had a potentially drastic effect on Iranian youth. A study published in the Iranian Journal of Clinical Infectious Disease showed that anywhere from 30 to 70 percent of the country's youth are involved with sexuality problems, while about 45 percent have been emotionally damaged.

Appropriate relationships between females and males are needed for their personality development, the study reported.

Nonetheless, Iran's strict adherence to Sharia law and official fatwas prevents any immodest behavior.

Additionally, alcohol smuggling in Iran in a lucrative, but deadly business. Bootleggers illegally important liqueur from Iraq in the middle of the night, sometimes crossing over mine fields to sell to students and other imbibers.

“Canned whiskey is the Iranians’ favorite,” an Iraqi merchant named Karwan told The Times of London in 2009.

Smuggling, like so many other crimes in Iran, has a maximum punishment of execution by hanging. It is not just that a person is breaking the law -- they are breaking the religious code handed down by Allah and written into the Koran.

“In 13 years of doing this I’ve done two prison sentences. I’ve been shot at dozens of times, had five mules killed, and been fined more than $2,000, said an Iranian smuggler calling himself Hazhar.

“They know I sell at a good price so want to come back. It’s when they are killed or put in prison that there is a problem. I reckon I’ve lost about $1 million over the last ten years that way. But we hear who gets arrested and try to help. When they are out again they pay me back in installments, Karwan said.