Teenage ladies arrested by Tehran over viral video of them dancing on Iranian battle memorial may now face ‘years in jail or the loss of life penalty’
Two young women were detained by police in Iran for posting a video of themselves dancing.
The viral Instagram post features the two girls, who appear to be teenagers, purportedly dancing at the Monument to the Unknown Martyrs of the Sacred Defence war memorial in Tehran.
The monument was built by Italian architect Marcello D’Olivo and honours those killed in the Iran-Iraq War that raged between 1980 and 1982.
Both of the women are wearing jeans, with one wearing a knitted jumper and the other a blue top covered by a cardigan.
Iranian authorities have said the girls’ outfits were ‘inappropriate’ and both girls have had their Instagram accounts blocked, according to Iran International.
Dancing has been forbidden until Iranian law since the Islamic Revolution in 1979 when the secular monarchy in Iran was overthrown and replaced by the theocratic rule of the cleric Ayatollah Khomeini, who died in 1989. He was succeeded after his death in 1989 by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has served as Supreme Leader of Iran for the 35 years since.
It is not yet clear what the two girls punishment will be, but according Article 637 of the Iranian Penal Code, dancing in public whether by women or men is considered a ‘crime against public modesty’ and can be sentenced to flogging – specified by law as 99 lashes.
But the two girls are far from the first to fall foul of Iran’s anti-dancing legislation.
The two young women were arrested for doing an Instagram dance together, purportedly at a war memorial
Dancing has been illegal in Iran since 1979 when the hardline cleric Ayatollah Ruhollah Khamenei came to power – he was succeeded after his death in 1989 by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has served as Supreme Leader of Iran for the 35 years since
In 2014, authorities sentenced six young men and women to suspended sentences of one year imprisonment and 91 lashes after they appeared in a video dancing to Pharrell Williams’ song ‘Happy.’
Four years later in 2018, Maedeh Hojabri, then 18, was arrested after posting videos of her dancing to social media.
While some of her posts featured her in a hijab, she also recorded videos of her performing to popular western artists like Justin Bieber with her hair uncovered.
Iranian state TV broadcast a video in which Ms Hojabri confessed to breaking ‘moral norms’ while insisting that was not her intention, and that she was only trying to gain more followers.
In the wake of Ms Hojabri’s arrest, many Iranian women posted their own videos of themselves dancing in support of the teenager, using hashtags such as #dancetofreedom and #dancing_isn’t_a_crime.
In November 2024, a 16-year-old girl tragically took her life in Iran after she was threatened with expulsion by her school after she was recorded dancing without a hijab.
An image of Arezoo Khavari’s final moments, which shows her balancing on the edge of a building, circulated on X, with several social media users condemning Iran’s strict dress code laws.
The death of Arezoo, who was an Afghan citizen living in the Iranian city of Shahrari, was confirmed by the General Department of Education of Tehran in a statement that said that the girl was ‘injured due to a fall from the height of a residential building’.
In 2018, Maedeh Hojabri, then 18, was arrested after posting videos of her dancing to social media – and was forced to apologise on state television
In 2024, 16-year-old Arezoo Khavari tragically took her life in Iran after she was sent home from school and threatened with expulsion for complying with their dress code
The teen had also faced repeated harassment from the school for not complying with its dress code policy, Masih alleged and also claimed that Arezoo had been threatened with expulsion after she was filmed dancing without a hijab.
Commenting on the teenager’s death, respected Persian human rights activist Masih Alinjad said: ‘The Taliban strip girls of education, and Iran’s clerics crush a girl’s spirit for letting her hair flow in the wind, for dancing, for choosing her own clothes.
‘Arezoo’s voice—like so many others—will be buried beneath the world’s louder headlines. Shame on Western leaders who shake hands with the Islamic Republic and the Taliban, thinking they can reform this cruelty.’
From the image of Muslim women as silent victims, Iranian women have been central to protests in Iran in recent times – including using dance as a form of defiance.
In the 2022 protests that swept the Islamic nation videos showed schoolgirls tearing up textbooks depicting the Supreme Leaders of the Islamic Republic.
Other videos showed them knocking the turbans off clerics’ heads or twirling their headscarves in the air in a rejection of the tight moral codes imposed by the Iranian regime.
Women’s marches erupted across Iran in 2022 with demonstrators at this protest twirling headscarves to protest religious dress codes
