Iran arrests two top actors who removed headscarves for solidarity with protesters

Iran has arrested two prominent actors who expressed solidarity with the protest movement and removed their headscarves in public in an apparent act of defiance against the regime, state media reported on Sunday.

Hengameh Ghaziani and Katayoun Riahi were both detained after being summoned by prosecutors in a probe into their "provocative" social media posts and media activity, the state-run IRNA news agency said.

Iran's clerical leadership has been shaken by more than two months of women-led demonstrations sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman of Kurdish origin who had been arrested by the morality police in Tehran.

Authorities in the Islamic republic describe the protests as "riots" and accuse the country's Western foes of fomenting them.

Ghaziani, a vocal critic of the crackdown on protesters, was arrested for inciting and supporting the "riots" and for communicating with opposition media, IRNA said.

The 52-year-old film star had already indicated she had been summoned by the judiciary, and then published a video on Instagram of herself removing the obligatory hijab. "Maybe this will be my last post," she wrote late on Saturday.

"From this moment on, whatever happens to me, know that as always, I am with the Iranian people until my last breath." The video, which appears to have been filmed in a shopping street, shows Ghaziani bareheaded facing the camera without speaking and then turning around and binding her hair into a ponytail.

In a post last week, she accused the "child-killer" Iranian government of "murdering" more than 50 children.

'Voice of oppressed people'

Riahi was later arrested in the same probe, IRNA said. The actor, 60, who has appeared in a string of award-winning movies and is also known for her charitable work, had in September given an interview to London-based Iran International TV, an outlet despised by the regime, without wearing a hijab.

She had expressed solidarity with the protests that have swept Iran since the death of Mahsa Amini, as well as opposition to the obligatory hijab.

According to the judiciary's Mizan Online news website, Ghaziani was among eight people who were summoned by prosecutors over "provocative" material posted on social media.

Agence France-Presse