Tehran – Thirty one people arrested by Iranian police risk the death penalty for making and distributing a porn movie they made with a cell phone, the president of Tehran’s criminal court, Saiid Mortazavi, has announced.

The 31 arrested in the past few days have also been charged with sexual violence on the actresses in the movie. Mortzavi has announced he will sentence to death all those involved in making amateur porn movies.
He has in the past few years has sentenced to jail dozens of journalists and shut down around one hundred publications.

A parliamentary commission has also accused Mortzavi of being behind the death of Iranian-Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi, who died in Iranian custody on 11 July 2003, almost three weeks after she was arrested for taking pictures outside a prison during a student protest in Tehran.

Amateur porn films made with the video cameras of mobile phones have a proseprous market in Iran and can fetch up to 30 euros each.

The market, tolerated for a long time, became a nationwide issue after a porn film of popular television actress, Zohre Mir Ebrahimi, having sex with her partner, was released.

Iran, second in a world ranking of countries with the highest number of executions per year after China, has already executed at least three people since the beginning of 2007.