City of Lies: Love, Sex, Death, and the Search for Truth in Tehran

Chapter Five: Leyla

Leyla’s character and details about her upbringing, family and work as a prostitute are based on one woman. Kayvan is a composite character based on several people.
The real Leyla is still, happily, alive. The story of Leyla’s death, however, is based on the real case of a woman who was executed for making a pornographic film. In 2001 a woman was stoned in Evin prison, charged with moral corruption. According to newspaper reports, the police had tracked her down using the serial number on her electricity meter, which was visible in the background of her porn film. The BBC quotes Entekhab newspaper on the woman stoned to death in Evin prison in 2001: news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1343058.stm. I changed Leyla’s death to hanging as, officially, nobody has been stoned to death in Tehran since 2001: Tabnak news website, 12 November 2012.
The Iran Human Rights Documentation Center estimates there are currently around 200–300 women facing the death penalty in Iran. Lawyers working there say it is not known how many have been charged with crimes related to moral corruption.
On prostitution: average age, Shafaf news website, 23 December 2009, article by Leda Ayaaz; camps for ‘reformation’, Mehr news agency, 10 July 2012 quoting Morteza Tamadon, Governor-General of Tehran province; Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani’s sermon: Robert Tait, Guardian, 4 June 2007, www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/jun/04/iran.roberttait.
Information on the cyberpolice is quoted from the cyberpolice website, www.cyberpolice.ir; crackdown on the Internet and Facebook pages: ISNA, quoting Kamal Hadianfar, 3 October 2013.
Report on Tehran’s police chief being caught in a brothel is from BBC news website, ‘Iran anti-vice chief “in brothel”’, 16 April 2008, news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7350165.stm. Proposal for licensed brothels, Jim Muir, BBC, 28 July 2002, news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2156975.stm.
Immoral women blamed for deterioration of society, earthquakes and the state of the economy: ISNA, quoting Tehran’s Friday Prayers leader, 17 April 2010. Parliament bill on porn: Sepah News Service, 3 September 2013.