The five Iranian girls arrested for a video of them dancing they apologized publicly, but they receive support from Iranian women, who in turn post their own dance videos.
The teens shared a TikTok on March 8, where they danced to Selena Gomez and Rema’s song “Calm Down.”
Arranged next to a tower block in Ekbatan, Tehran, the girls danced without any headgear.
They were reportedly arrested by Iranian police two days later: In Iran, women are not allowed to dance in public or be seen without their hair covered by a hijab.
The girls’ detention is in line with similar arrests following the 22-year-old’s death Masha Amini on September 16, 2022.
Amini had been arrested by the Iranian Morale Police for not wearing the hijab properly: her death, three days after her arrest, was widely disputed by Iranian society, with Masha’s parents accusing the policemen of killing her.
After her death, women across the country protested the strict morality laws, burning their veils and cutting their hair.
Now a new video has been released, with the girls apologizing for their video: “Dear people of Iran, we want to say that we made a mistake and we want to apologize, the websites didn’t delete our dance video.
We are really sorry for our mistake: TV channels used our video without our permission, we asked them to delete it but they paid no attention to us.”
According to the Twitter account @shahrak_ekbatan, which chronicles the city of the five girls, the latter were forced to apologize for the video.
“The girls of Ekbatan, whose dance video has gone global, were detained for 2 days after being taken by the judiciary: a confession uploaded to dance instructor Khanom Mitra’s page has now been extracted from them,” reads the a post.
Despite the reported apology, support for their action has come from women around the world.
American singer Selena Gomez shared an article on Instagram, saying, “Praise to these young women and all women of Iran who continue to be brave, calling for fundamental change, your strength is inspiring.”
Nigerian singer Rema also chimed in, writing on Twitter: “To all the women who are fighting for a better world, I am inspired by you, I sing for you and I dream with you.”
In Iran, women have started posting videos in support of teenage girls with clips of them dancing to the same song without covering their heads.
The videos were posted with the women’s faces blurred to maintain anonymity towards the Iranian authorities.