A popular Iranian internet dating website that claimed to be helping people find a spouse and start families has been banned for “promoting prostitution“, on the advice of leading Islamic clerics.Hamsarchat.com, which boasts of having chalked up more than 1.6m page visits, was also fined and ordered to pay back money collected from clients, after a judge consulted senior ayatollahs – known as “sources of emulation” – following a complaint from Tehran’s public prosecutor.It has been marketing itself as “Iran‘s most complete spouse-finding website” and had promised to link members with “the closest person or persons to your standards” in return for a 25,000 rial (£1.66) fee.
