Tehran, Feb 1, (dpa/GNA) – The young Iranian couple dancing in a video posted on Instagram, each received a five-year prison sentence, the Justice Ministry’s online information portal said on Wednesday.
Activists said the two actually face more than double that.
Mizan, which is considered the judiciary’s news agency, said judges had handed down the five-year term to Astiyazh Haghighi, 21, and her fiancé Amir Mohammad Ahmadi, 22. They were convicted of violating national security laws.
The government accused the two of calling for protests on social media.
Activists on Tuesday however, had a very different version. They said the bloggers were each sentenced to more than 10 years on charges of indecency and threatening national security.
Ahmadi and Haghighi, were arrested in early November, the US-based organization Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) reported.
A video showed the two bloggers dancing in front of the Freedom Tower in the capital, and Haghighi was not wearing the compulsory headscarf, both of which are banned in public. There was no information as to when the video was released.
The latest wave of protests in Iran was triggered by the death of the Iranian Kurd Mahsa Amini in police custody in mid-September. She had been arrested by the so-called vice police for allegedly violating Islamic dress codes.
Street protests erupted after that, but have recently abated. The government has cracked down hard on its citizens, including executing four of them.
Many women now express their displeasure through civil disobedience, for example by ignoring the headscarf.
GNA