Iranian college students given 99 lashes for co-ed dance graduation party

More than 30 college students in Iran were reportedly arrested and given 99 lashes within 24 hours of throwing a co-ed dance graduation party.

The report appeared in Iran’s Mizran news agency.

The raid happened in Qazvin, which is located about 90 miles from Tehran. According to The New York Times, Qazvin’s prosecutor, Esmail Sadeghi Niaraki, said the women were “half naked” (likely not wearing headscarves and other traditional Islamic clothes) and party attendees of both sexes were “dancing and jubilating.”

“We hope this will be a lesson for those who break Islamic norms in private places,” Niaraki said, according to BuzzFeed News.

The arrests and the harsh punishment are the latest in a string of crackdown by hard-liners in Iran. On Wednesday, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported that 23 people were arrested in Kerman at a “singles home,” according The New York Times.

Additionally, Iran’s judiciary announced last week that eight people were arrested who were involved in online modeling without their headscarves, and a former model was questioned on television.