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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 1 year

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Published: Jan 31, 2023

PARIS: An Iranian court has handed jail sentences of over 10 years each to a young couple who danced in front of one of Tehran’s main landmarks in a video seen as a symbol of defiance against the regime, activists said on Tuesday.

Astiyazh Haghighi and her fiance Amir Mohammad Ahmadi, both in their early 20s, had been arrested in early November after a video went viral of them dancing romantically in front of the Azadi Tower in Tehran.

Haghighi did not wear a headscarf in defiance of the Islamic republic’s strict rules for women, while women are also not allowed to dance in public in Iran, let alone with a man.

A revolutionary court in Tehran sentenced them each to 10 years and six months in prison, as well as bans on using the Internet and leaving Iran, the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said.

The couple, who already had a following in Tehran as popular Instagram bloggers, were convicted of “encouraging corruption and public prostitution” as well as “gathering with the intention of disrupting national security,” it added.

HRANA cited sources close to their families as saying they had been deprived of lawyers during the court proceedings while attempts to secure their release on bail have been rejected.

It said Haghighi is now in the notorious Qarchak prison for women outside Tehran, whose conditions are regularly condemned by activists.

Iranian authorities have clamped down severely on all forms of dissent since the death in September of Mahsa Amini, who had been arrested for allegedly violating the headscarf rules, sparked protests that have turned into a movement against the regime.

At least 14,000 people have been arrested, according to the United Nations, ranging from prominent celebrities, journalists and lawyers to ordinary people who took to the streets.

The couple’s video had been hailed as a symbol of the freedoms demanded by the protest movement, with Ahmadi at one moment lifting his partner in the air as her long hair flowed behind.

One of the main icons of the Iranian capital, the gigantic and futuristic Azadi (Freedom) Tower is a place of huge sensitivity.

It opened under the rule of the last shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in the early 1970s when it was known as the Shahyad (In Memory 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 Bahai faith which is not recognized in today’s Iran, now lives in exile.

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beardedmrbean · 1 year

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A young couple who posted a video of themselves dancing romanticallyin the streets of Tehran have been sentenced to several years in prison,according to human rights activists and Iranian authorities.

The jailing of Instagram influencers Astiyazh Haghighi, 21, and her fiancé, Amir Mohammad Ahmadi, 22, comes amid the regime's crackdown in a bid to quell anti-government protests that have swept the country.

The couple, popular figures on social media with a combined following of almost two million,have regularly posted videos together.

In one video posted to their Instagram accounts in November, which has since been deleted but is now being circulated widely on social media,the bloggerscan be seen dancing at night near Tehran’s landmark Azadi (Freedom) tower, which marks the western entrance to Iran's capital.

The couple can be seen twirling and dancing as they embrace with a glittering filter transposed onto the video, in front of the glowing monument.

While dancing is not illegal according to Iran's penal code, women dancing in public — particularly with men — is. Haghighi appeared in the video without a headscarf, an item of clothing that has become a focal point of the protests.

The couple did not link their video to the unrest that erupted across the Islamic Republic in the wake of the death of 22-year-old Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini in hospital after she wasdetained by the morality police having been accused of breaking the country’s strict dress code.

But news of the couple's prison sentences was first reported Sunday by an activist group, which said they had been violently arrested on Nov. 1 last year by security forces "after they published a video on social media showing them dancing in a city square."

Haghighi and Ahmadi were sentenced to ten years and six months each in prison, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency, or HRANA, the communications arm of Human Rights Activists in Iran, which describes itself as a “non-political and non-governmental organization comprised of advocates who defend human rights in Iran.”

The two were also banned from using social media, and prohibited from leaving the country for two years, HRANA said, adding that were reportedly denied access to a lawyer during legal proceedings. The last post on both of their Instagram accounts is from Sept. 22.

Iran's Mizan news agency, which is run by the judiciary, reported Wednesday that Haghighi and Ahmadi were arrested by authorities on Nov. 1 and later sentenced by a judge to to five years in prison each for “colluding and rallying against the country’s security.”

“Their focus was to encourage people to protest and overthrow the regime,” the report said. “They used their platform to advertise for protests, including the call for the October 26th protests. Despite being informed of their disruptive actions by security officials, they persisted and were arrested on November 1st.”

NBC News has been unable to independently verify any details of this case and it is unclear what may be behind the discrepancy between the activist group and Mizan.

The couple's story quickly spread among supporters of the protests on social media.

“For the crime of dancing, these two young Iranians have been sentenced,” the Iranian activist and journalist, Masih Alinejad, tweeted on Monday. “They don’t deserve such brutality,” she said, sharing the video of the pair dancing.

"This arbitrary and totally unjust long imprisonment for posting a video clearly shows that authorities are using trumped up charges through the unfair judicial system to crackdown on not just social freedoms, but on acts of peaceful resistance and mobilization that courageous protestors have been undertaking over the past several months," Tara Sepehri Far, a senior researcher on Iran at Human Rights Watch, told NBC News via email.

The protests that swept across Iran after Amini’s death developed into perhaps the greatest challenge to theocratic rule since it was established in the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

After months violently cracking down on the protests, the Iranian government has now started hanging people in public, a response that prompted an outcry from human rights activists and Western officials.

So far, at least 527 people have been killed — including 71 children — four protesters have been executed, and almost 20,000 others have been arrested, according to the Washington area-based watchdog group, Human Rights Activists in Iran. Iran’s Interior Ministry said in December that the death toll was 200, including security forces who were killed.

In an Instagram post uploaded Sept. 20, Haghighi wrote about her own experience being stopped by morality police on several occasions because of her “inappropriate” clothing, and the fear it had instilled in her.

“They took me inside the van,” she recalled of one incident in her Instagram post. “The fear that it had given me never left me.”

“You often curse me, asking why I don’t speak up,” Haghighi continued on Instagram, addressing her followers. “I want to tell you that I can’t, not because I don’t want to. It’s because my mother has no one but me, and I am the head of my family. I’m afraid of my mom’s tears.”

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