Selena Gomez, actress and singer, has spoken out in defense of the five Iranian women who were arrested after dancing to her song in Tehran and had to publicly apologize.
In the video, uploaded to YouTube on March 8th, the teenagers can be seen dancing in front of an apartment building in Tehran’s Ekbatan area to “Calm Down,” a song written by Nigerian artist Rema and remixed with Selena.
The Iranian security authorities imprisoned the teenagers for 48 hours after they shared a video of themselves on TikTok in which they were not wearing hijab. Their defiance of the law that bans women to perform musical acts in public without covering their hair with a scarf was apparent.
The girls were then compelled to shoot another video apologising for their actions, this time, while wearing headscarves.
Instagram star Selena Gomez, who has 400 million followers, posted a photo of these five girls with the caption “[love] to these young women and all the women of Iran who continue to be courageous demanding fundamental change” on Friday. “Please know your strength is inspiring,” she added.
The 21-year-old Afrobeats singer has remarked that young Iranian girls and other Iranian women who work to make the world a better place have been his inspiration.
His tweet read, “To all the beautiful women who are fighting for a better world, I’m inspired by you, I sing for you, and I dream with you.”
Many Iranians were outraged by the Islamic Republic’s swift response to arrest the “girls of Ekbatan,” causing them to make their own recordings of themselves dancing to the song in solidarity with the teenagers.
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