An Iranian couple who filmed themselves dancing in front of Tehran's Azadi Tower and posted the footage to Instagram have each been sentenced to a total of 10 and a half years in prison.
Astiyazh Haghighi, 22, and her fiance Amir Mohammad Ahmadi, 21, were sentenced on Sunday after having been convicted of promoting indecency, colluding against national security, and producing propaganda against Iran's government, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) and IranWire, a news organisation run by Iranian journalists outside of the country.
The 16-second video, posted to Instagram in October, shows them dancing together in Tehran's Azadi Square at night, with the brightly lit Azadi Tower visible in the background.
Ahmadi holds Haghighi in his arms as they spin around at one point in the tightly edited clip, causing her uncovered hair to trail out behind her.
Dancing in public is illegal for women in Iran, as is men and women embracing, and women leaving their hair uncovered.
HRANA reports Haghighi is currently being held in the Qarchak women’s prison outside Tehran, which is known for its poor conditions, after being transferred from Evin Prison in the capital, which houses mostly political prisoners.
The couple's 10-and-a-half-year sentences are the combined total of their prison terms for the three convictions, meaning they will likely have to serve the longest of their three sentences if they are are upheld.
The combined sentences are longer than the eight years and two months handed down in January to Iranian man Sajjad Heydarnawa, who was convicted of murder, assault and disturbing public order for beheading his 17-year-old wife.
Who are the couple in the video?
Both Haghighi and Ahmadi are popular presences on Instagram, with a combined 2 million followers across several accounts.
Instagram has long been one of the few social media networks to remain unblocked in Iran. However, access began to be restricted late last year and there has been talk among government officials of a permanent ban.
Haghighi's posts to the platform look much like the posts you would see from Western influencers, with a focus on relationships, beauty and fashion, although her hair remains technically covered throughout.
Her content has rarely been overtly political, and is mostly focused on her romance with Ahmadi.
However, with the Azadi Square video now having been deleted, the most recent post on her account is a simple message, written in Farsi and posted on September 28 in the wake of the death of Mahsa Amini.
"Hoping tomorrow will be a better tomorrow. Let's hold each other's hands and support each other. We are all Iranians and we need to help each other," the message says.
Why is the Azadi Tower so important?
The white monument visible behind the couple in the video, the Azadi Tower, is a prominent landmark in Tehran that many view as symbolising the contradictions which define modern Iran.
It was initially named the Shahyad Tower, after the last Shah of Iran, who oversaw its construction in the 1960s and 70s after it was originally commissioned to mark the 2,500-year anniversary of the founding of the Persian empire.
It was renamed the Azadi Tower (meaning Freedom Tower) after the Iranian Revolution of 1979.
Its architect, a young man named Hossein Amanat, fled the country shortly afterwards amid a crackdown on his Bahá'í faith.
Since the advent of the Islamic Republic, the tower and the square it overlooks have become a flashpoint for both pro-democracy and pro-government demonstrations, including the Green Revolution.
Was the video an act of protest?
Iran's cities have been gripped by mass protests since September last year, when 22-year-old woman Mahsa Amini died in custody after she was arrested by the country's morality police for failing to properly wear a headscarf.
The government has responded to the protests with violence and mass arrests.
At least 14,000 people have at some point been taken into custody since September, according to the United Nations, and human rights activists estimate more than 500 protesters have been killed, including 70 children.
There have also been a number of high-profile executions, which Amnesty International has condemned due to the defendants' lack of access to adequate defence.
While the protests have expanded in scope to encompass a number of causes, including ending poverty and fighting corruption, the call for women to be able to participate more freely in public life remains at the core of the movement.
Wearing their hair down in public has become a popular way for Iranian women to show their support for the movement, though they risk being arrested or attacked for doing so.
Prominent female Iranian athletes, including an archer, a rock climber and even chess players, have at times removed their headscarves or let them fall from their heads during competitions — acts widely viewed as having been carried out in support of the protests, even if they were later walked back under pressure from authorities.
Dancing has also come to symbolise the freedoms denied to Iranian women and desired by the younger generation in particular.
Whether the video was conceived as a direct message of defiance or not, Iran's government is highly attuned to the power of social media to inspire mass unrest, having survived the Green Revolution of 2009-10, which was largely coordinated on Twitter.
State television channel IRIB in 2018 aired a program in which Instagram influencers delivered apologies to the public for content they had posted online, the apologies seemingly recorded while in detention.
The TV channel later admitted it had been pressured by "judicial authorities" to air the program.
