Middle Eastern news publication, www.thepeninsulaqatar.com, Qatar’s leading English daily reports that a deputy prosecutor in Tehran, Iran is seeking the death penalty for dozens of Iranian operators of pornographic and anti-Islamic websites.

Prosecutor Reza Jafari said 50 Iranians had been arrested and were under investigation for running such websites and promoting prostitution. He said the term “corrupt on earth” suited “a person who manages many immoral, anti-religious and anti-revolutionary sites, and corruption on earth is legally punishable by death” under strict Islam.

“The accused in these cases face several charges, and so we will call for the maximum punishment prescribed by the law,” he said, without specifying how many could face the death penalty or when they would go on trial.

Jafari, the prosecutor of a special tribunal against cyber crimes, said 90 websites had been shut down since March and that half of the 50 people arrested had paid a hefty bail to be released.

The websites contained pornographic material including “incest, sex with children and animals, homosexuality and erotic stories” as well as “insults to religious sanctities,” Jafari said.

The suspects were all rounded up in Iran, although some of them were based outside the Islamic republic.

In March, Iran’s Revolutionary Guards militia said it had launched a crackdown on several groups who had set up anti-Islamic and pornographic sites on the Internet.

The groups involved were based in foreign countries, particularly in the United States, and had published “articles against the Islamic revolution and religious values, and also released pornographic material,” it said.

The websites were not named but the Revolutionary Guards accused the Internet search engine Google and rival firms of “offering financial support” to the unidentified groups.