A court in Iran has sentenced an influencer couple to a total of 21 years in jail for the ‘crime’ of dancing in a public square.

Accused Amir Mohammad Ahmadi and Astiyaj Haghighi were each given 10 and a half years behind bars by the 15th branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Court.

This was after they were convicted of ‘encouraging corruption and prostitution’ and ‘proselytising against the regime’.

They had been seized by plainclothes officers on 1st November after posting this video of themselves sharing a tender dance in Tehran’s famous Azadi Square.

Independent media reported that they were beaten up during their arrests and that security police then bullied their families into silence.

Feared judge Abolqasem Salavati – nicknamed ‘Iran’s Hanging Judge’ by human rights and political activists – also banned the two from using social networks for two years.

Salavati – who notoriously once put a man to death for heresy for describing Jonah and the Whale as an allegory – also banned them from leaving Iran for two years.

A source told independent media that Amir, born in 2001, and Astiyaj, born in 2002, were denied a lawyer.