Iran students sorry for ‘raining aubergines’ videos Published duration 17 March Related Topics Coronavirus pandemic

image copyright IRINN image caption Iranian state TV reporter speaks to students arrested over aubergine videos

Five Iranian students have apologised on TV after being arrested for making videos that appeared to show aubergines raining down on Tehran.

The videos, showing the vegetables falling on people’s heads and cars, went viral on Persian social media.

Later the hardline Tasnim news agency said five people had been arrested for “causing public disquiet”.

The five men told state TV they were art students who had made the videos for a university project.

They told a reporter that they had wanted to test their abilities in special effects.

They had shared the videos only with their friends and had not intended them to be circulated online, the students added.

Iran is one of the worst-hit countries in the current coronavirus crisis: the virus has killed 853 people and infected close to 15,000 in Iran, according to government figures.

“Unfortunately, [the videos] were misused and we are very sorry about this,” one of the men said.

Brig Gen Ali Zulqadri, the head of Tehran’s security force, also featured in the state TV report and said he accepted that the videos were released “mistakenly”.

The students and the TV reporter who spoke to them were all wearing face masks, presumably as a precaution against the coronavirus.