An Iranian court docket has handed jail sentences of greater than 10 years every to a younger couple who danced in entrance of considered one of Tehran’s important landmarks in a video seen as a logo of defiance towards the regime, activists have mentioned.
Astiyazh Haghighi and her fiance, Amir Mohammad Ahmadi, each of their early 20s, had been arrested in early November after a video went viral exhibiting them dancing romantically in entrance of the Azadi Tower.
Haghighi was not sporting a headband, in defiance of Iran’s strict guidelines. Ladies are additionally not allowed to bounce in public, not to mention with a person.
A revolutionary court docket in Tehran sentenced them every to 10 years and 6 months in jail, in addition to imposing bans on utilizing the web and leaving Iran, the US-based Human Rights Activists Information Company (HRANA) mentioned.
The couple, who already had a following in Tehran as in style Instagram bloggers, had been convicted of “encouraging corruption and public prostitution” in addition to “gathering with the intention of disrupting nationwide safety”, it mentioned.
HRANA cited sources near their households as saying that they had been disadvantaged of attorneys through the court docket proceedings, and makes an attempt to safe their launch on bail had been rejected.
It mentioned Haghighi was now in Qarchak jail for girls, exterior Tehran, whose circumstances are commonly condemned by activists.
Iranian authorities have clamped down severely on all types of dissent since Mahsa Amini’s loss of life in September. The loss of life of Amini, who had been arrested for allegedly violating the headband guidelines, sparked protests which have changed into a motion towards the regime.
At the very least 14,000 folks have been arrested, in accordance with the United Nations, starting from distinguished celebrities, journalists and attorneys to bizarre individuals who took to the streets.
The couple’s video had been hailed as a logo of the freedoms demanded by the protest motion, with Ahmadi at one second lifting his companion within the air as her lengthy hair flowed behind.
One of many important icons of the Iranian capital, the futuristic Azadi (Freedom) Tower is a spot of big sensitivity. It opened below the rule of the final shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, within the early Seventies, when it was generally known as the Shahyad (In Reminiscence of the Shah) Tower.
It was renamed after the shah was ousted in 1979 with the creation of the Islamic republic. Its architect, a member of the Bahá’í religion, which isn’t recognised in as we speak’s Iran, now lives in exile.