Iranian regime announces prison sentence for dancing couple

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Screenshots from the video supposed to show Astijazh Haghighi with her fiance Amir Mohammad Ahmadi

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The Iranian judiciary has sentenced a young couple who drew attention to themselves with a dance video.

As the justice portal Misan announced on Wednesday, Astijazh Haghighi, 21, and her fiancé Amir Mohammad Ahmadi, 22, were each sentenced to five years in prison for violating national security.

The two bloggers called for protests on social media, the accusation was.

The judiciary contradicted activists who had published a different version on Tuesday.

According to information from the activists, the bloggers were each sentenced to more than ten years in prison by a revolutionary court in Tehran after the publication of a dance video.

Ahmadi and Haghighi were arrested in early November, the US-based organization Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) reported.

Dance in front of the Freedom Tower

A video showed the two bloggers dancing and Haghighi without a headscarf in front of the Freedom Tower in the capital, Tehran.

Both are banned in public in Iran.

There was no information as to when the video was released.

According to activists, the couple was also convicted of "spreading depravity."

In Iran, large sections of the population have been protesting for months, with young women in particular initially taking to the streets against the government.

The latest wave of protests was triggered by the death of the Iranian Kurd Jina Mahsa Amini in mid-September.

She had been arrested by the so-called vice police for violating Islamic dress codes.

The authorities are taking brutal action against the demonstrators. Several death sentences have already been carried out and around 14,000 people have been arrested.

Survivors report systematic torture.

Street protests have abated in recent weeks.

Many women now express their displeasure through civil disobedience, for example by ignoring the compulsory headscarf.

Rouhani's criticism of the government

Iran's former President Hassan Rouhani, who once stood up as a reformer, has lamented the deep divisions in society in the face of the protests.

This has manifested itself in recent months, said the 74-year-old on Wednesday in Tehran, as reported by the Shiite news portal Shafaqna.

»It is an important task of those responsible to find the roots of the protests and to respond to the people.«

more on the subject

• What speaks for - and what against: Should Iran's Revolutionary Guard on the EU terror list?By Monika Bolliger

• Four months after the death of Jina Mahsa Amini: Has Iran's regime triumphed? By Monika Bolliger and Christoph Reuter

• Whips, broken bones, electric shocks: Those affected report systematic torture by Iranian security forces

Rohani accused the government under incumbent President Ebrahim Raisi of a lack of legitimacy: "The key to solving today's problems lies in a return to competitive elections with broad popular participation." In the summer of 2021, Raisi had the lowest voter turnout in the history of the Islamic Republic came to power.

In the past few weeks, politicians who, like Rouhani, belong to the reform camp, have tried to achieve reconciliation in moderate tones.

Many young demonstrators in particular also reject the positions of the reform politicians.

The demonstrators often accused reforms of being impossible.

Instead, they call for an overthrow of the Islamic system of rule.