Iranians Arrested after Celebratory World Cup Video

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TEHRAN, Iran — For the second time in the past few months, Iran authorities have arrested those involved in making a celebratory music video. Last month, six individuals were arrested and since released for filming a music video to the Pharrell Williams song “Happy”.

Iran vs. Portugal, Photo by Amiro

Iran vs. Portugal, Photo by Amiro

This week, three individuals have been arresting for filming a music video entitled “Gole Iran” by the London-based Ajam Band in support of Iran’s World Cup football team. VICE News reports that those arrested are two 23-year-olds, who can be seen in the video, and a 26-year-old photographer.

Like in the video that the young Iranians made to “Happy”, Iranian authorities have issue with the women in the videos being shown not wearing headscarves. The official IRNA news agency of the state released a quote from police chief Colonel Rahmatollah Taheri, who called the World Cup music video “vulgar”, according to Associated Press.

For this reason, the World Cup video was also condemned by Iranian authorities because it is illegal for women without scarves to be in—and especially dance in—public. In this World Cup video, both men and women can be seen dancing and singing in various locations in Iran, including the city where the arrests were made, Sharoud. They are shown waving Iran’s flag and playing musical instruments.

Iran has been known to censor websites in the past, but with the arrests made from the highly-viewed “Happy” video and “Gole Iran” videos it appears that Iranian authorities are making examples of viral videos to Mahsa Alimardani, an Iranian-Canadian internet researcher, specializes in human rights criticized the arrests telling Mashable, "They're trying to make a point about the world cup festivities, and this is the only way they can scare people. It's really ridiculous."

The punishment of the makers of the video echoes sentiments of the country’s hardliners who are aiming to steer the country away from what they consider Western “decadence”. However, the country’s more moderate president Hassan Rouhani has sought for more cultural and social tolerance in Iran. Despite this, internet censorship apparently still has a presence as this is the second public arrest made over a harmless YouTube video.

There are thirteen credited individuals in the making of “Gole Iran”, including the seven members of Ajam Band, who wrote the song played in “Gole Iran”. Aside from the seven-member band, there are six that were responsible for the directing, editing, filming, and graphics, according to VICE News. The roles of the individuals arrested in making the video remains unknown. In the case of the “Happy” arrests, the detained parties included the dancers and the film’s director.

The video published days before the World Cup commenced garnered 30,000 views on YouTube and now has over 300,000 views. Agence France-Press said the video aired on satellite television in Iran, which is watched illegally by many of its people. Iran was eventually knocked out of the competition June 25 after impressively holding their own against semi-finalists Argentina. Amir Jahnashai, the founder of an Iranian opposition television channel in London tweeted, “The entire Iranian nation today supports our football team. Such solidarity should be present in all fields,” as was the message of “Gole Iran”.

Follow Allyson on Twitter Twitter: @nahmias_report Contributing Journalist: @allysoncwright

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Iran: Morality Laws Lead to Arrest of Dancing to “Happy” Celebrants

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house-party-iran-photo-by-beyond-borders-media-cropped.jpg

Allyson Cartwright, Contributing JournalistLast Modified: 00:52 p.m. DST, 22 May 2014

House Party, Iran, Photo by Beyond Borders Media

TEHRAN, Iran — Three men and three women were arrested in Tehran after posting a YouTube video of themselves dancing to Pharrell Williams’s hit song “Happy."

The video entitled “Happy in Tehran” was deemed obscene by the Tehran police chief, Hossein Sajedinia. The country, however, has rallied around the six young Iranians and is criticizing the government for being too socially restrictive.

Subsequently, five of the dancers in the video have been released, but the director is still being held in police custody, according to CNN.

The “Happy in Tehran” video depicts the Iranians dancing around different locations to the song “Happy”. Most notably, the three women were publicly unveiled—a punishable offense in Iran. It became a viral video in Iran and was shared all over social media. When it was posted in April, the video garnered more than 165, 000 views on YouTube before it was blocked.

After the attention that the video received, it also caught the attention of Tehran police who determined that making the video was criminal. Police Chief Sajedinia explained to the state-run Iranian Students' News Agency why the video creators had been detained, “After a vulgar clip which hurt public chastity was released in cyberspace, police decided to identify those involved in making that clip.”

Sajedinia decided to make an example out of the creators adding, “Our dear youths should try to avoid these kinds of people. Like actors, singers, and these kinds of problems. Try to avoid it.”

The police tricked the video creators into their arrest, a source told Iran Wire.  The sources said, “All of the young producers received phone calls informing them that a friend had suffered a car accident and required their help. When they arrived at the address they had been given over the phone, security forces were waiting to arrest them.”

After the arrest, The Huffington Post says a public interrogation was held on Iranian state TV. On Iranian TV, the video creators were identified as “actors” who were coerced into making the video for an audition and told that it would not be aired.

The Iranian regime that has been in power since the 1979 revolution enforces conservative, religious values that result in the limitations of internet publication. The “Happy in Tehran” video represents how social media has been used globally to rebel against this kind of hardliner authority. After the arrests of the creators, most people seemed to defend them. Other Iranians reposted the video adding “#FreeHappyIranians” in support of the detained.

Even the president of Iran, Hassan Rouhani, came to the defense of the creators. He tweeted today, in reference to the five creators’ release, a quote he made last year, “#Happiness is our people's right. We shouldn't be too hard on behaviors caused by joy.” Reuters reports that Rouhani has been vocal about his opposition to harsh internet censorship saying in a speech from this weekend, “We ought to see (the Internet) as an opportunity.

We must recognize our citizens' right to connect to the World Wide Web.” Pharrell Williams, the singer of “Happy”, also spoke out in support of the six Iranians. The Grammy Award winner posted on his Facebook page, “It is beyond sad that these kids were arrested for trying to spread happiness.”

The video credits seem to suggest their intentions were just that harmless as it reads, “We have made this video as Pharrell Williams' Fans in 8 hours, with iPhone 5S. 'Happy' was an excuse to be happy. We enjoyed every second of making it. Hope it puts a smile on your face. © All Rights Reserved by Sol Production.” According to the video creators, the purpose of the video was to celebrate the UN's International Day of Happiness. Neda, one of the arrested dancers told Iran Wire, “We wanted to tell the world that the Iranian capital is full of lively young people and change the harsh and rough image that the world sees on the news.”

Follow Allyson on Twitter Twitter: @nahmias_report Contributing Journalist: @allysoncwright

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Iran Halts Ordered Stoning Death

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Hello. I read your recent article about stoning to death. Reading your article reminded me of the bleeding bruises in my heart once again. You wrote about murdering by stoning?

Have you ever held a bloody tool in your hands with which they have murdered your mother? Have you ever touched the bloody skin and hair of your mother who has just been killed in a deep hole? Have you ever followed the line of your mother’s blood in order to find her corpse thrown at the back of a truck?

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Lioness of Iran's 'Strange Fruit'

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Ayanna Nahmias, Editor-in-ChiefLast Modified: 23:25 PM EDT, 29 May 2010

Anonymous Iranian Hanging VictimIRAN - Five Kurdish political prisoners were executed 9 May 2010 in Iran. One of the prisoners was a young woman named Shirin Alam Holi. Arrested in May 2008 in Tehran, the twenty-eight year old was sentenced to death for her alleged support of Pezhak, a Kurdish opposition group.

Convicted and sentenced to death on the charge of moharebeh (enmity with god), during her two-year incarceration she was repeatedly subjected to torture and degrading inhumane treatment to confess to supporting Pezhak. She had no legal representation during her long and grueling interrogation period and her rights as an accused were never observed. Neither Alam Holi, her family, or her lawyers were informed about the planned execution.

In the same month, Iran’s Revolutionary Court sentenced exiled women’s human rights activists Shadi Sadr and Mahboubeh Abbasgholizadeh in absentia to 6 years imprisonment and 74 lashes, and 2.5 years imprisonment and 30 lashes, respectively, for participation in peaceful demonstrations in 2007.

On 8 March 2010 Simin Behbahani's was leaving Tehran Airport for Paris to deliver a speech and read a few of her poems on the occasion of International Women's Day. Her passport was confiscated and despite her physical fragility and age, she was interrogated all through the night and told to report to the Revolutionary Court. For now, Behbahani is under country arrest. She is virtually a prisoner in her own country.  Source: PBS News Hour

Simin Behbahani, also known as the Lioness of Iran wrote a poem about the horror of the execution of Shirin Alam Holi and her fellow prisoners.

NOT ONE, NOT TWO.......THEY WERE FIVE By Simin Behbahani (translated by Fatemeh Keshavarz) Not one, not two ...they were five and yet I don't know why In my mind, they were more like fifty. And, how is it possible that gallows [on which they were hanged] Were, someday, trees that did not surrender to axes? Tell me how to write about the treehood days of the gallows: Standing firm for freedom, they dug their heels in the meadow. When the breeze found them in the orchard and wrapped itself around their branches Their message reached everyone in soft playful dances. Now, heads have grown on them, heads hanging from broken necks, Heads of full-bodied figures, perhaps champions in their own way. Left waiting, feet-dangling-in-the-air, utterly robbed of their words, These heads whose stories could have filled many books! Only clouds could now rain tears on their broken bodies, For mothers were not united with them even after their death. Don't waste a complaint on the faithless judge, who Was the enemy, not of darkness and tyranny, but of the Giver of life.

Source: Payvand Iran News

Behbahani's poem is eerily reminiscent of another famous lament of human rights abuses.  Abuses that occurred in the United States made famous by Billie Holiday in the song 'Strange Fruit' which decried the  abhorrent practice of 'lynching' in the South. Listen to song here.

Duluth, Minnesota, June 15, 1920

Lynching is extrajudicial punishment carried out by a mob, often by hanging, but also by burning at the stake and shooting, in order to punish an alleged transgressor, or to intimidate, control, or otherwise manipulate a population of people, however large or small.

It is related to other means of social control that arise in communities, such as charivari, riding the rail, and tarring and feathering. Lynchings were more frequent in times of social and economic tension, and often were means by the politically dominant population to oppress social challengers. Nearly 5,000 African-Americans were lynched in the United States between 1860 and 1890.[1] Source Wikipedia

America has come a long way since these heinous acts, though racism and xenophobia by fringe groups is on the rise. However, it took the concerted effort of individuals and groups to highlight such atrocities as lynching and to valiantly fight to eradicate them.

Unknown to many Americans the women's movement in Iran began in the early 1900's.  Since that time Persian women have played a significant role in the quest for equality.  During the "White Revolution" in 1962, important women's rights measures, including suffrage and the Family Protection Law of 1967 were ratified. Later these laws were amended more heavily in favor of women in 1975, which ended extrajudicial divorce and restricted polygamy.[2]

Though the women in Iran continue to be faced with the daunting task of achieving equality, they persevere in challenging a theocracy dominated by a rigid religious machinery with deep cultural beliefs about the limitations of women. Sometimes this comes at the cost of their lives, at other times the cost of their freedom, yet they still prevail. Below is a photo montage of Persian women who have advanced the role of women in Iran, followed by a list of their names with hyperlinks to their biographies.

Some of the most notable activists are:[3][4]

Between the 'Nuclear Fuel Swap' brokered by Brazil for Iran and Turkey and the 'Moms of the Detained Hikers' returning home without their children, this contentious nation very much in the public's eye. Iran is a country plagued with human rights abuses and under the current government Women's Rights in Iran continue to erode as the government cracks down on women like Behbahani who are viewed as subversive.

We may yet know the fate of Simin Behbahani, however, her voice is an inspiration to all who seek to promote peace through the exploration of our commonalities versus our differences. As a woman and a writer, she is a testament to the power of a single voice to change lives.

Follow Nahmias Cipher Report on Twitter
Twitter: @nahmias_report Editor: @ayannanahmias

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