A Tehran court has sentenced Iran's best-known male dancer to a ten-year suspended prison term for promoting corruption amongst young people by setting up dance classes in the United States, his lawyer said Monday.
The sentence, handed down Sunday, bans Mohammad Khordadian from leaving Iran for 10 years, giving private or public dance classes for life and attending public celebrations or the weddings of people who are not close relatives for three years, lawyer Abdolrahman Rasouli said.
"Khordadian is innocent. He has done nothing wrong to deserve punishment. The whole verdict is irrelevant," Rasouli told The Associated Press.
Khordadian, 46, an Iranian-American who lives in Los Angeles, could not be reached for comment. The dancer was jailed in May during a visit to Iran, his first in twenty years.
He was released from Tehran's Evin prison late Sunday. The 10-year suspended jail term will be enforced if he is again found guilty by the court.
Rasouli said the dancer would appeal the verdict. He has 20 days to do so. Khordadian told the court during the trial that "dancing is my job and I had no intention of promoting corruption among the youth," the lawyer said.
Khordadian, a pop and folk dancer, was traveling on an American passport and obtained his visa in Dubai, before traveling to Iran to visit his ailing father and relatives, Rasouli said.
Khordadian's dance programs are widely watched by Iranian expatriates and many inside Iran on Los Angeles-based, Persian-language satellite television channels.
Sweeping social restrictions imposed after the 1979 Islamic revolution have been gradually eased since the election of reformist President Mohammad Khatami in May 1997.
However, hard-line followers of Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, still control such institutions as the judiciary and police and have tried to protect their eroding power by closing pro-democracy publications and jailing or harassing scores of prominent reformist journalists and activists. (Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
