A loved-up Iranian couple who appeared in a video dancing that enraged the Islamic state’s government was given a sentence of more than 10 years in prison.
The video shows Astiyazh Haghighi, 21, and her fiancé Amir Mohammad Ahmad, 22, dancing passionately in front of Tehran’s iconic Azadi Tower.
According to Agence France-Presse, they were caught in early November since women are not permitted to dance in public in Iran, much less with a male.
To show her support for the demonstrations following the death of Mahsa Amini, 22, in September after her imprisonment for defying tight hijab regulations, Haghighi also made an appearance in the film sans a headscarf.
A revolutionary court in Tehran condemned Haghighi and her boyfriend to 10 1/2 years in prison this Monday, according to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA).
According to the court, the couple, who are both well-known on Instagram, were found guilty of promoting public prostitution and corruption as well as assembling with the goal to undermine national security.
According to the claims, they were also forbidden from using the internet and from leaving Iran.
Sources close to their families said that they were denied access to attorneys during the court procedures, according to AFP.
According to reports, Haghighi is being held in the notorious Qarchak women’s jail outside of Tehran, whose conditions are frequently criticized by campaigners.
According to the UN, at least 14,000 people have been arrested as a result of the regime’s ongoing crackdown on individuals who are protesting its treatment of women brutally.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, declared Iran to be in the midst of a serious human rights crisis in November, just a few months after the savage crackdown on protesters began.
When Amini passed away while in the care of the morality police after being detained for wearing indecent clothing, the demonstrations with the hashtag #WomanLifeFreedom got underway in September.
Authorities claim she had a heart attack after being taken to a station for education, but her family disputes this and claims she was only bruised all over.
Four years after the Islamic Republic of Iran was founded following the 1979 revolution, the hijab was made obligatory.
