Saturday, August 18, 2018

An Iranian Dream: "Why Can't I Dance?"

by Majid Rafizadeh • August 18, 2018 at 5:00 am

To people in the West, it may seem impossible for dancing to become a crime. But as sharia laws get imposed, before you know it, any innocent act of "fun" can suddenly become a crime.
Maedeh Hojabri posted video clips of herself dancing on Instagram. For this "crime," the 19-year-old woman was arrested, jailed without due process and without an opportunity to defend herself, and publicly shamed with a televised confession of her "crime."
Who will the morality police come for next?

Maedeh Hojabri, shown in this Instagram video screenshot committing the "crime" of dancing. For this, she was arrested by the Iranian police, jailed without due process and publicly shamed.

A Muslim mother in the sharia-ruled country of Iran, was talking about her 10-year-old daughter: "She asked me, 'Why can't I dance? We dance because we are happy. How can being happy be wrong? Why is dancing a crime?'" She spoke about the confusion in her daughter's eyes. "It is a question I don't know how to answer."

Her daughter's life had changed, she said, when she heard that a 19-year-old woman named Maedeh Hojabri had become the target of the Iran's Islamist "morality" police. Her crime? Posting video clips of herself dancing on popular worldwide social media sites, like Instagram. The consequences for an act like that are severe. As has happened to other young women who posted video clips of themselves dancing, Hojabri was arrested, jailed without due process and without an opportunity to defend herself, and publicly shamed with a televised confession of her "crime."