CAIRO: Iranian officials arrested one of the country’s most popular actresses on suspicion of providing false information about the country’s widespread protests, state television reported Saturday.
According to IRNA, Taraneh Alidoosti, star of the Oscar-winning film “The Salesman,” was held a week after making an Instagram post expressing solidarity with the first man recently hanged for crimes committed during the countrywide rallies.
Alidoosti was arrested, according to a report published on the state media’s official Telegram channel, since she did not present “any papers in line with her assertions.”
“His name was Mohsen Shekari,” she wrote in her Facebook post. “Every international institution that stands by and does nothing is a shame to humanity.”
Shekari was hanged on December 9 after an Iranian court charged him with blocking a thoroughfare in Tehran and assaulting a member of the country’s security services with a machete.
Protests have erupted in Iran since the murder on September 16 of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died after being held by morality police. Since then, the protests have evolved into one of the most severe challenges to Iran’s theocracy, which was established by the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Authorities arrested Hengameh Ghaziani and Katayoun Riahi, two more well-known Iranian actors, for expressing support with demonstrators on social media.
According to Human Rights Activists in Iran, a group that has been following the protests since they began, at least 495 people have been killed in the demonstrations amid a severe security crackdown. Authorities have detained almost 18,200 people.
Source: AP