Posted by: angelina77
« on: July 31, 2010, 08:03:01 AM »
Women who wear revealing clothing and behave promiscuously are to blame for earthquakes, a senior Iranian cleric has said.
Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi's comments follow a warning by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that a quake is certain to hit the capital Tehran and that many residents should relocate.
In a prayer sermon, the cleric
Some experts have even suggested Iran should move its capital to a less seismically active location. Tehran straddles scores of fault lines, including one more than 50 miles (80 kilometres) long, though it has not suffered a major quake since 1830.
In 2003, a powerful earthquake hit the southern city of Bam, killing 31,000 people - about a quarter of that city's population - and destroying its ancient mud-built citadel.
Referring to the violence that followed last June's disputed presidential election, Sedighi said, 'The political earthquake that occurred was a reaction to some of the actions (that took place).
'And now, if a natural earthquake hits Tehran, no one will be able to confront such a calamity but God's power, only God's power... So let's not disappoint God.'
The Iranian government and its security forces have been locked in a bloody battle with a large opposition movement that accuses Ahmadinejad of winning last year's vote by fraud.
Minister of Welfare and Social Security Sadeq Mahsooli said prayers and pleas for forgiveness were the best 'formulas to repel earthquakes'.
'We cannot invent a system that prevents earthquakes, but God has created this system and that is to avoid sins, to pray, to seek forgiveness, pay alms and self-sacrifice,' Mahsooli said.
