Iran’s leader disapproves of flogging a critic but not jailed actress

Peyman Aref was chained to a wall and lashed 74 times with a whip wielded by a masked guard at Tehran’s Evin prison on Sunday.

Photographs of his bloodied and lacerated back were posted on social networking sites by Iran’s online community.

However, Mr Ahmadinejad said high-profile political figures has already “defamed” him with impunity and declared: “I disapprove of flogging a young man for insulting the president.”

It is thought he was referring to hardline critics in the Iranian judiciary and parliament, whose preferred candidates could benefit if Mr Ahmadinejad were to lose face ahead of crucial elections next March.

On Monday, the European Union froze the assets and put travel bans on a further 29 officials in Iran for what Foreign Secretary William Hague said was Tehran’s “appalling human rights record”.

Mr Ahmadinejad faced further international criticism yesterday when it emerged that an Iranian actress has been sentenced to 90 lashes and a year in prison for starring in a film about the risks artists in Iran take for creative expression.

Marzieh Vafamehr – who appears in the Australian-produced 2008 film, My Tehran for Sale – was arrested in July and sentenced at the weekend, said the opposition website, kalameh.com.

Producers Julie Ryan and Kate Croser said they were shocked and saddened by the sentence. They said they believed the charges relate to scenes where the actress appeared with a shaven head and no headscarf.

Shot entirely in Tehran and directed by an Iranian-Australian, Granaz Moussavi, the film tells the story of a young Iranian actress whose stage work is banned by the authorities.

“What I wanted to do in my film is to focus on ordinary middle-class, urban people,” Ms Moussavi said in one interview. “They are not seen, they are not heard and they haven’t been captured on film.”

The film’s producers said they had obtained all the necessary permits for the movie, which was never meant for release in Iran. The film’s circulation on Tehran’s black market was “totally outside the control” of the company, they said.

Australia’s foreign ministry said it “condemns the use of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” and was deeply concerned by reports of Ms Vafamehr’s plight.

Mr Ahmadinejad has spoken out against the strict dress code for women, which he realises is unpopular with younger voters.

Tehran University political science student Mr Aref, 29, was flogged just hours before he left Evin prison where he had served a year-long term. He was also given a lifetime ban from working as journalist or membership of any political party.

In defiant remarks to an opposition website, Rahesabz.com, yesterday, he said his sentence and flogging were “illegal”.

He said: “Every time Ahmadinejad goes to New York, he boasts of Iran as the world’s most free country. But here I was whipped in the most savage manner possible for insulting him.”

Mr Aref said his flogging stemmed from an open letter sent to the Iranian president after his fiercely disputed re-election two years ago.

His letter complained about “catastrophic” university purges across Iran and was deemed to have failed to address the president with due respect.