“That dance is not religious”: Iran censors the video of the women’s basketball national team

As beautiful as the sun, happy, smiling. But no, that video does not like to the Islamic Republic, which makes him remove the Asiacup Instagram account and from the official page of the international basketball federation (FIBA).

This also happens, after they circulated the images of a joyful dance of Iranian basketball players for a couple of hours. AFC (Asian Football Confederation) eliminates it because Islamic authorities did not like women to dance.

The justification? “Dance not in line with religion“.

It is shocking. A joyful dance video of Iranian basketball players has just been canceled because the authorities of the Islamic Republic did not like women to dance. The censorship is not respect for culture. It is complicity, he says in a post on X Masih Alinejad, journalist, writer and Iranian activist naturalized American.

The Iranian basketball players, therefore, for a few hours have “challenged” the regime with a simple dance, were victims of a cruel and ruthless censorship.

It is not the first time that the Iranian authorities throw themselves against the women’s bodytrying to control every aspect, every movement, every expression. It is not the first time that a simple manifestation of joy, a smile, a carefree dance, were perceived as a threat. In Iran, women are subjected to constant repression, to a life made of laws that limit all their freedoms, all their choice. Women in Iran are forced to hide their body, to wear the veil, to respect rules that reduce them to shadows. They cannot dance in public, they cannot sing, they cannot express their joy without being judged and, in some cases, suppressed.

Censorship, but not silence

Censorship in Iran is not just an act of repression: it is a declaration of war against women’s freedom. It is an attempt to silence their voices, to annihilate their independence. But the censorship, however powerful, cannot turn off the desire to live, to express himself, to fight for his rights. Iranian women are tired of living in the shadows, tired of being treated as second -class citizens. And their resistance is stronger than ever.

Dance, which might seem only an act of leisure, has become a symbol of resistance for many women in Iran. A gesture that, in democratic countries, would represent a form of personal expression, in Iran is an act of rebellion against a regime that does not allow them to move freely. The images of that dance, deleted with a click, have become the symbol of the fight of millions of Iranian women who challenge the regime every day, risking their lives and freedom for a simple, but powerful, act of expression.

Women in Iran are not sun. Their battle is not only against censorship, but against a system that has been trying to suffocate their freedom for decades. Their dance, even if canceled, remains powerful in our hearts as a symbol of hope, courage and freedom.