A journalist has said that a woman who became famous for her bizarre appearance, an appearance that some have compared to 'the corpse bride', has been sentenced to 10 years in prison in Iran for 'corrupting the youth' and breaching public decency laws.
Fatemeh Khishvand from Tehran, the Iranian capital, and who goes by the name Sahar Tabar online, has had plastic surgery to make her look more like Hollywood star Angelina Jolie. Journalist, Masih Alinejad claimed on Friday that Tabar had been jailed and then called on Angelina Jolie herself to speak out. She said on Twitter:
"Islamic Republic has a history of tormenting women. We need to be united against this gender apartheid … Sahar Tabar is only 19. Her joke landed her in jail. Her mother cries every day to get her innocent daughter freed. Dear Angelina Jolie! we need your voice here. Help us."
I call on Angelina Jolie to help an Iranian 19-year-old girl who received 10 years prison sentence for using makeup & Photoshop to turn herself into Angelina.
— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) December 11, 2020
Islamic Republic has a history of tormenting women. We need to be united against this gender apartheid pic.twitter.com/Z5Y8yMsY76
While Tabar's appearance is shocking, it is thought that she has only had two or three surgeries and that many of her pictures are photoshopped. She also wears extreme make-up in order to create a more alarming appearance as part of an artistic expression. She has previously said to reporters:
"Every time I publish a photo, I paint my face in an increasingly funny way. It is a way of expressing yourself, a kind of art. My fans know that this is not my real face."
It had been previously claimed by some journalists that Tabar had had upwards of 50 plastic surgeries.
Tabar first reached public attention in 2017 when she released pictures of herself online and has since gained a large number of followers on social media.
Iran has extremely strict laws regarding how women should dress and appear in public. Women have previously been arrested and jailed for refusing to wear an Islamic headscarf in public and for breaking laws that could 'infringe public decency'. A protest movement in 2017 led to many women removing their headscarves in public and demanding that the government relax the laws on how women should be dressed. The laws remain in place to this day and many protestors are still in prison.
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