This is insane.
An Iranian couple was sentenced to prison for ten and a half years over a video of them dancing in Azadi Square – a central square in the capital Tehran.
Astiyazh Haghighi, 21, and her fiance Amir Mohammad Ahmadi, 22, are both social media influencers. Each has close to a million Instagram followers, and their separate YouTube channels total more than half a million subscribers.
They posted a video of themselves dancing – something most people would see as absolutely lovely – and were charged with "spreading corruption and vice" and "assembly and collusion with the intention of disrupting national security," according to the activist group Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA).
Haghighi was not wearing a head scarf.
WATCH:
HRANA claims the couple got ten and a half years; however, Mizan, a news agency affiliated with Iran's judiciary, said each individual was sentenced to a 5-year prison term on the charges of "assembly and collusion with the intention of disrupting national security."
According to the government media, Mizan Online, the couple is being accused of encouraging people to assemble and inviting them to riot in an Instagram post made on October 26.
According to HRANA, along with the lengthy prison sentence, Judge Abolqasem Salavati banned both individuals from posting videos on social media and from leaving the country for two years.
From CNN:
Security forces first raided the couple's home in the early morning hours of October 30, a source told CNN, and took them to interrogation and then later transferred them to prison.
Protests have been spreading like wildfire across Iran after the death of Mahsa Amini.
Irans response to these protests has been executions.
I may be naive, but all I saw was a beautiful young couple dancing in the streets. I didn't see a call for protest – but even if they did, they should be free to do so.
More from CNN:
Their lengthy sentences have been compared by critics to that of Sajjad Heydari, an Iranian man who notoriously beheaded his wife last year. Heydari, who killed his 17-year-old wife in February 2022, was sentenced to just eight years and two months in prison, according to the country's semi-official Khabar Online website.
That's Iran for you...
