A young Iranian couple have been arrested for hugging in public following a public marriage proposal which has been slammed as copying ‘decadent Western culture’.

A video of the proposal, in which the couple stand in the middle of a heart-shaped ring of rose petals next to colourful balloons, went viral on social media on Friday.

But the romantic display of affection in a shopping centre in the Iranian city of Arak later saw the pair arrested by police.

📹 Man publicly proposes to woman at shopping mall in Arak, central #Iran

Both arrested for "marriage proposal in contradiction to islamic rituals… based on decadent Western culture," then released on bail pic.twitter.com/eKdlNX9Bte — Sobhan Hassanvand (@Hassanvand) March 8, 2019


Footage shows the man sliding a ring onto the woman’s finger after she says ‘yes’, before they hug as a crowd of shoppers cheer at the happy news.



Police say the couple have since been released on bail.

Journalist Sobhan Hassanvand shared the video on Twitter and wrote that the unidentified couple had been handcuffed for ‘marriage proposal in contradiction to Islamic rituals… based on decadent Western culture’.

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Arak’s deputy police chief, Mostafa Norouzi, told the Shahrvand Daily that it is unacceptable for the young ‘to do whatever is common in other places of the world and disregard mores, culture and religion’ in Iran.

Norouzi added that the pair’s ‘offence is very clear and there is no need for explanation’ about the reason for their arrest.

Iranian police said the offence is ‘very clear’ in the video (Picture: Rainer Puster/Getty/iStockphoto)

Lawyer Isa Amini, head of the Tehran Bar Association, spoke out about the arrest and said he could not understand what the grounds were for arrest, believing the couple did not commit any wrongdoing.

However, the ‘semi-official’ Government news agency Fars called the public proposal ‘shameful’ and claimed it could promote ‘immorality.’

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The agency demanded ‘harsh’ punishment to stop such displays from being repeated by others.

Mahmoud Khalaji, deputy commander of police in the province of Markazi province, told Fars they had ‘outraged public decency, which is an influence of the degenerate Western culture’.

Many Iranian hard-liners perceive public displays of affection as result of allegedly corrupt influence of Western culture that threatens morals in the conservative Islamic society.

The Islamic Republic’s strict rules forbid gender mixing in public.

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