Iran Jails Couple For 10+ Years Over Viral Dancing Video
A younger couple of their 20s had been arrested in Iran over a viral video of them dancing. They’ve acquired a jail sentence of 10 years and 6 months every.
Conviction, Arrest and Jail Sentences
Astiyazh Haghighi, 21 and her fiancé, Amir Mohammad Ahmadi, 22, had been arrested for posting a video of themselves dancing at Tehran’s Azadi Sq. in Iran.
The 2 had been overwhelmed and arrested by plainclothes brokers in November of 2022, and acquired their sentences on Sunday.
They’d been accused of selling indecency, colluding towards nationwide safety, and producing propaganda towards the Iranian authorities. They had been every convicted and sentenced to 10 and a half years in jail.
Together with the jail time period, the 2 of them are banned from utilizing social media in addition to leaving Iran for two years.
Based on sources and the couple’s households, they had been disadvantaged of gaining access to a lawyer and their request to be launched with bail was rejected.
The couple had filmed a 16-second video of them dancing collectively in Azadi Sq. in Tehran, Iran at night time. The brightly lit Azadi Tower was seen within the background. Within the video, Ahmadi held Haghighi in his arms as they spun round at one level, inflicting her uncovered hair to path out behind her.
Dancing in public or leaving one’s hair uncovered is unlawful for girls in Iran, and so is the motion of women and men embracing one another.
Because the couple has been convicted of three crimes, their sentences are a mixed results of punishment for all of them.
The Couple in The Video
The 2 folks within the video are Iranian social media influencers. They’ve a substantial presence on-line with a mixed follower rely of round 2 million throughout a number of accounts. They’re well-known within the metropolis of Tehran for being Instagram bloggers.
Haghighi usually posted about style, magnificence and relationships whereas her hair remained technically coated in all her on-line content material. The video of her dancing along with her fiancé is one the place she had her hair utterly uncovered. She by no means posted any overtly political content material.
She is now supposedly being held at Qarchak Jail for Girls, which is usually criticized for its inhumane situations.
Her newest publish after deleting the video in entrance of Azadi Tower is now a message written in Farsi, which says:
“Hoping tomorrow will probably be a greater tomorrow. Let’s maintain one another’s palms and assist one another. We’re all Iranians and we have to assist one another.”
She had posted this to Instagram on September 28, 2022, within the wake of the dying of Mahsa Amini, a Kurdish lady who died in the direction of the top of final yr whereas in police custody after being arrested by the nation’s morality police for “improperly” carrying her hijab.
A Viral Video of Rebel
Many individuals and the Iranian authorities have speculated that Haghighi and Ahmadi’s final video collectively was an act of insurrection towards the Iranian authorities after Amini’s dying, particularly because it was filmed in entrance of Azadi Tower and its sq., a landmark that has change into a flashpoint for each pro-democracy and pro-government demonstrations in Tehran. The phrase ‘Azadi’ means ‘freedom’.
The Iranian authorities has been cracking down aggressively on all opposition and protests, usually leading to violence and arrests. Girls go away their hair uncovered in public as an act of protest (which Haghighi is convicted for) however at their very own danger of getting arrested and attacked.
