Iran has arrested two prominent actors who expressed solidarity with the protest movement and publicly removed their headscarves in an act of defiance against the regime, Iranian state media reported on Sunday.
Hengameh Ghaziani and Katayoun Riahi were both detained after being summoned by prosecutors in a probe into their “provocative” social media posts and media activity, the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) said.
Iran’s clerical leadership has been shaken by more than three months of women-led demonstrations sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman of Kurdish origin who had been arrested by the morality police in Tehran.
Photo: AFP
Authorities in the Islamic republic describe the protests as “riots” and accuse the country’s Western foes of fomenting them.
Ghaziani, a vocal critic of the crackdown on protesters, was arrested for inciting and supporting the “riots” and for communicating with opposition media, IRNA said.
The 52-year-old film star had already indicated she had been summoned by the Iranian judiciary, and published a video on Instagram of herself removing the obligatory hijab.
“Maybe this will be my last post,” she wrote on Saturday.
“From this moment on, whatever happens to me, know that as always, I am with the Iranian people until my last breath,” she wrote.
The video, which appears to have been filmed in a shopping street, shows Ghaziani bareheaded facing the camera without speaking and then turning around and binding her hair into a ponytail.
In a post last week, she accused the “child-killer” Iranian government of “murdering” more than 50 children.
Riahi was later arrested in the same probe, IRNA said.
The actor, 60, who has appeared in a string of award-winning movies and is known for her charitable work, had in September given an interview to London-based Iran International TV, an outlet despised by the regime, without wearing a hijab.
She expressed solidarity with the protests that have swept Iran since the death of Mahsa Amini, as well as opposition to the obligatory hijab.
According to the judiciary’s Mizan Online news Web site, Ghaziani was among eight people who were summoned by prosecutors over “provocative” material posted on social media.
They also included Yahya Golmohammadi, coach of Tehran’s soccer team Persepolis FC, who had strongly criticized players on the national squad for not “bringing the voice of oppressed people to the ears of the authorities.”
The comment came after Iran’s national soccer team last week met Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi ahead of their appearance at the World Cup, which began on Sunday in Qatar.
Mizan said other prominent actors, including Mitra Hajjar and Baran Kosari, had also been summoned.
Earlier this month, Taraneh Alidoosti, one of Iran’s best-known actors remaining in the country, posted an image of herself on social media without the mandatory headscarf.
Alidoosti vowed to stay in her homeland at “any price,” saying she planned to stop working, and would support the families of those killed or arrested in the protest crackdown.
Iranian cinema figures were under pressure even before the start of the protest movement sparked by Amini’s death.
Prize-winning directors Mohammad Rasoulof and Jafar Panahi remain in detention after they were arrested earlier this year.
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