Tehran, Oct 28 (ANI): Iranian actress Marzieh Vafemehr has been spared 90 lashes and further imprisonment for her role in the South Australian film 'My Tehran for Sale', Amnesty International has claimed.
"We are extremely pleased to hear that Marzieh has been released without being subjected to the cruel and degrading punishment of flogging, but the crackdown on filmmakers continues in Iran," the Herald Sun quoted Amnesty International's Campaigns Manager, Hannah Harborow, as saying.
"Marzieh seems to have been released after an appeal court reduced her imprisonment to three months and overturned the flogging sentence on Monday night," Harborow added.
She was arrested in June after black market copies of the film began circulating in Tehran, showing Vafamehr in some scenes without an Islamic hijab.
Vafamehr's family had requested a Western media blackout of the case since her arrest, but the Iranian opposition website Kalameh.com went public with news of the actress' harsh punishment earlier this month.
Internet images of officially administered lashings in Iran show victims being placed face down in a prone position and then being whipped with a long stick on the upper legs, back and buttocks.
In 2008, Vafamehr, Moussavi and South Australian producers Croser and Julie Ryan filmed the movie in Tehran and brought the footage back to Adelaide for post production.
Vafamehr plays the character of a young actress in Tehran whose theatre work is banned by the authorities.
This is not the first time that an Iranian lashing story has hit the headlines. One of the most prominent cases was that of Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani, who was sentenced to death by stoning on 'adultery' charges, at Evin prison in Tehran. She had earlier received 99 lashes on adultery charges. (ANI)
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