After garnering media attention, a popular Instagram account that showed wealthy young Iranians living the glamorous life was banned by Iran's Ministry of Culture after immorally violating religious law.
The account, Rich Kids of Tehran, showed snapshots of the rich and beautiful partying in nightclubs and driving around Ferraris in Iran's capital Tehran.
The culturally controversial Instagram account, which was undoubetly modeled after Rich Kids of Instagram, was created less than a month ago. It posted over 300 photos and now, after media coverage. has more than 95,500 followers. The account is based on the lives of the country's upper-class and grabbed the attention of Iran's Ministry of Culture.
Iran's culture police abruptly removed the account for users in Iran on Thursday "due to false publicity."
The photos, which show lavish cars, beautiful women in bikinis and alcohol, violate Iran's religious laws. Alcohol is banned in Iran and women are required to wear headscarves. The photos of these young elite Iranians show a different image compared to western stereotypes. And with 42 percent of Iran's population aged 24 or younger, the power of social media to influence popular thought cannot be underestimated.
"We love our city of Tehran. We are in no way trying to put a difference between rich and poor. We are trying to show the world how beautiful Tehran and people from Tehran are," one of the accounts administrators writes. "The Middle East is always on TV receiving negative attention and we just wanted to show that Tehran is not like that. This page is in no way political, and we never had any bad intentions. We never thought the page would make headlines all over the world. Some of the people featured in this Instagram account don't live in Iran. #richkidsoftehran #welovetehran"
Regardless of social status, defying religious laws results in arrest and even lashes in Iran.
Iran's Ministry of Culture previously banned Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. The Facebook account for Rich Kids of Tehran is still live as of Friday.
