Astiyazh Haghighi and her fiancé Amir Mohammad Ahmadi, both in their twenties, were arrested in November 2022. The cause of their arrest: a video of them dancing romantically in front of Azadi Tower in Tehran had gone viral. An Iranian court sentenced the young couple to more than ten years in prison, according to Iranian human rights activists. Astiyazh Haghighi did not wear an Islamic veil, defying the Islamic Republic’s strict rules regarding women, who are also not allowed to dance in public in Iran.
A revolutionary court in Tehran sentenced them to ten and a half years in prison, as well as a ban on using the internet and banning them from leaving Iran, the NGO Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), based in the United States, reported. United States. Popular on Instagram, the couple were found guilty of “encouraging corruption and public prostitution”, as well as “assembling with intent to disrupt national security”, the NGO added.
Citing sources close to their families, HRANA said they were denied a lawyer during the legal proceedings and attempts to obtain their release on bail were rejected. The NGO says Astiyazh Haghighi is in the notorious Qarchak women’s prison, whose conditions of detention are regularly condemned by human rights activists.
Iranian authorities have cracked down harshly on all forms of dissent since the death of Mahsa Amini in September, which sparked a wave of protests against the regime. At least 14,000 people have since been arrested, according to the United Nations, including celebrities, journalists, lawyers and ordinary citizens.
The video of this couple had been hailed as a symbol of the freedoms claimed by the protest movement. Known as one of the main attractions of the Iranian capital, the gigantic and futuristic Azadi (“freedom”) tower is a sensitive place for power. It was inaugurated during the reign of the last Shah of Iran, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi (1941-1979), in the early 1970s, and was then known as the Shahyad Tower (“in memory of the Shah”). It was renamed when the Islamic Republic was created in 1979.
In a separate case, Armita Abbasi, a 20-year-old Iranian woman, went on trial on Sunday after she was arrested in October during protests in the city of Karaj near Tehran. CNN, citing leaks and an unnamed medical source, reported in November that she had been taken to hospital after being raped while in custody. Allegations denied by the Iranian authorities. His lawyer Shahla Oroji said Armita Abbasi was charged with propaganda against the system and the court refused to release her on bail.