A group of five Iranian teen girls are being sought by police for posting a TiKTok 40-second video clip of themselves dancing to the song “Calm Down” by Selena Gomez and Nigerian singer Rema released on the International Women’s Day. The video has gone viral on social media. In Iran, the video is considered an act of defiance. Women and girls in Iran are required to wear a headscarf and are forbidden to dance in public. Young women removing their headscarves have become a staple of a protest movement that has grown into calls to overthrow the Islamic republic.The Instagram page in which the dance video was first published has been deactivated.The girls face possible arrest and detention.
In January, an Iranian court sentenced a two bloggers, Amir Ahmadi and his partner Astiaj Haghighi, to a total of 21 years in prison for publishing a video of themselves dancing in Tehran’s central Azadi Square. Recently, hundreds of young Iranian girls attending different schools have become affected by noxious fumes dispersed into their classrooms.
