Iranian couple filmed dancing in Tehran are jailed for 10 years - The Guardian

An Iranian tribunal has handed jailhouse sentences of much than 10 years each to a young mates who danced successful beforehand of 1 of Tehran’s main landmarks successful a video seen arsenic a awesome of defiance against the regime, activists person said.

Astiyazh Haghighi and her fiance, Amir Mohammad Ahmadi, some successful their aboriginal 20s, were arrested successful aboriginal November aft a video went viral showing them dancing romantically successful beforehand of the Azadi Tower.

Haghighi was not wearing a headscarf, successful defiance of Iran’s strict rules. Women are besides not allowed to creation successful public, fto unsocial with a man.

A revolutionary tribunal successful Tehran sentenced them each to 10 years and six months successful prison, arsenic good arsenic imposing bans connected utilizing the net and leaving Iran, the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said.

The couple, who already had a pursuing successful Tehran arsenic fashionable Instagram bloggers, were convicted of “encouraging corruption and nationalist prostitution” arsenic good arsenic “gathering with the volition of disrupting nationalist security”, it said.

HRANA cited sources adjacent to their families arsenic saying they had been deprived of lawyers during the tribunal proceedings, and attempts to unafraid their merchandise connected bail had been rejected.

It said Haghighi was present successful Qarchak situation for women, extracurricular Tehran, whose conditions are regularly condemned by activists.

Iranian authorities person clamped down severely connected each forms of dissent since Mahsa Amini’s decease successful September. The decease of Amini, who had been arrested for allegedly violating the headscarf rules, sparked protests that person turned into a question against the regime.

At slightest 14,000 radical person been arrested, according to the United Nations, ranging from salient celebrities, journalists and lawyers to mean radical who took to the streets.

The couple’s video had been hailed arsenic a awesome of the freedoms demanded by the protestation movement, with Ahmadi astatine 1 infinitesimal lifting his spouse successful the aerial arsenic her agelong hairsbreadth flowed behind.

One of the main icons of the Iranian capital, the futuristic Azadi (Freedom) Tower is simply a spot of immense sensitivity. It opened nether the regularisation of the past shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, successful the aboriginal 1970s, erstwhile it was known arsenic the Shahyad (In Memory of the Shah) Tower.

It was renamed aft the shah was ousted successful 1979 with the instauration of the Islamic republic. Its architect, a subordinate of the Bahá’í faith, which is not recognised successful today’s Iran, present lives successful exile.