TEHRAN: Iranian police arrested three young women after a video online showed them dancing in a cemetery, the prosecutor in the northeastern city of Neyshabur said on Saturday according to media.

“Following the publication of a video on the internet of three girls dancing in the cemetery of the martyrs of Neyshabur in Razavi Khorasan province, the prosecutor ordered the identification and arrest of the defendants,” the Tasnim news agency reported.

“The emotions of the families of the martyrs were hurt”, prosecutor Mohammad Hosseini said, adding that the three women had been arrested.

The trio expressed “remorse and apologies for committing an act against social norms”, he added.

Dancing in Iran is not a crime, but legal experts say that if some someone dances in public or on the internet in a manner seen as offending public decency, they can face prosecution.

Published in Dawn, April 10th, 2022