An Iranian court on Monday upheld a two year prison sentence against a well-known female Iranian comedian who dared to criticise the archaic Islamic laws.

33-year-old Zeinab Mousavi, who goes by an online alias of “Empress of Kuzcoo” and has nearly half-a-million followers on Instagram was arrested in October last year from her home in Qoms.

After being arrested, Mousavi spent 25 days in solitary confinement before being let out on bail.

However, in December, using an arbitrary judicial process, she was handed a two-year prison sentence according to the Iranian NGO Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA).

Mousavi had been using her online platform to criticise the imposition of hijab on Muslim women in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Her online alias was the parody of an old villager who wears a hijab that only shows her nose.

It was a clever commentary on how women are supposed to look under the medieval rules imposed by highly misogynistic Islamic men.
However, this is not the first instance where the Iranian regime has exposed itself for going to dire lengths to quash voices of reason.

Last month, Amir Mohammad Ahmadi and Astiyazh Haghighi – an Iranian couple in their 20s was sentenced to more than 10 years in prison after they posted a video of themselves dancing.
As Haghighi was seen without a scarf or a hijab in the video, dancing alongside a male figure, alone at night in front of a prominent landmark, the authorities considered it an attempt to show rebellion against the strict Islamic laws of the country.

Ever since the death of a 22-year-old Kurdish woman named Mahsa Amini allegedly at the hands of Iran’s morality police in September last year, the country has plunged into a sea of demonstrations.

The Iranian government has come down heavily upon the protesters and is now imprisoning and executing them with the judiciary firmly sitting in its corner.