In Tehran, a couple in their twenties sentenced to 10 years in prison for dancing in front of the Freedom Tower

Ten years in prison: here is the price of a few minutes of freedom in Tehran.

On Tuesday January 31, Astiaj Haghighi and his companion Amir Mohammad Ahmadi, aged 21 and 22 respectively, were sentenced to 10 and a half years in prison.

In October 2022, the couple of influencers had posted on their social networks a video of them dancing lovingly in front of the Azadi tower, one of the main monuments of the capital of Iran, also called the freedom tower.

Read alsoFingers of honor for freedom: this photo of Iranian high school girls, a new symbol of protest

The young woman was not wearing a veil and her hair was loose.

In Iran, young women are required to wear the Islamic veil, and are not allowed to dance in public places.

As

reports , the young woman and her friend were arrested following the publication of this video.

Beaten during their capture, they would then have been transferred to district 209 of the Ministry of Intelligence, and had been waiting since their trial.

Stripped of their rights

The couple were found guilty of “advocating corruption, assembly and collusion, for the purpose of disrupting national security and disseminating propaganda” against the Islamic Republic of Iran.

In addition, to their years of imprisonment is added the prohibition to use the Internet and to leave the country for two years after having served their sentence, specified the non-governmental organization Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA).

Questioned by the NGO, sources close to the two influencers said that the latter had been deprived of lawyers throughout the legal proceedings.

Astiaj Haghighi is currently in Qarchak women's prison, whose conditions of detention are regularly condemned by human rights activists.

Read alsoAsal Bagheri, Iranian researcher: "No one predicted that this uprising would be a women's movement"

In video, French stars cut their hair in solidarity with Iranian women

symbol of protest

This arrest follows the wave of protests that have raged in Iran since the death of Mahsa Amini under the blows of the morality police in Tehran on September 16, 2022. The young woman had been arrested three days earlier for “wearing the inappropriate veil".

The anti-regime revolt is intensifying in the country, led by a young generation in search of freedoms.

In protest, thousands of women have marched through the streets of the city in recent months.

A slogan was even created by these Iranian women: “Zan, zendegi, azadi” (“Woman, life, freedom”).