- Five Iranian teenage girls recorded themselves dancing to a Selena Gomez song and posted it on TikTok.
- Iranian authorities arrested the girls and detained them for 48 hours, per la Repubblica.
In most countries, a group of teenage girls publicly recording a TikTok dance to a Selena Gomez song would be unremarkable. But in Iran, where it is illegal for women to dance in public, and where wearing hijabs is compulsory, it was seen as an act of defiance.
Authorities certainly saw it that way, detaining the five teenagers and coercing them into filming a video repenting their actions, according to the Italian newspaper la Repubblica.
The girls recorded a video of themselves on March 8 — International Women's Day — dancing to "Calm Down" by Selena Gomez and Nigerian singer Rema in front of a tower block in a suburb of Tehran.
In the video they are wearing crop tops and none are wearing hijabs — both of which is illegal under Iranian law.
@thedriman #dance #dancing #calmdown ♬ Calm Down - Rema
The clip quickly went viral, which led to police using CCTV footage and interrogating guards at the tower block in order to find them, Fox News reported.
According to la Repubblica, authorities eventually identified and arrested the girls. They were detained for some 48 hours, the newspaper said.
The teenagers were forced to return to the same spot where they recorded their first video, in order to record a second video of themselves repenting, with their heads covered.
But rather than acting as a deterrent, the incident has led to a wave of others replicating the original video, dancing to the Gomez song without their traditional head coverings.
The incident follows large-scale protests in Iran last year, following the suspicious death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, who was arrested for allegedly violating the country's mandatory hijab law.
In the aftermath of Amini's death, women burned their hijabs in the streets or removed their headscarves in protest at Iran's theocratic and authoritarian regime. Many others marched in the streets. Tens of thousands of protesters were arrested.
The Iranian government cracked down on protests by using fear, intimidation, and internet blackouts.