Originally published 2020-12-14.
Sahar Tabar, the Iranian Instagram user nicknamed "Zombie Angelina Jolie", was reported in December 2020 to have been sentenced to 10 years in prison. Her real name is Fatemeh Khishvand. She had been arrested in Tehran in October 2019 over her heavily edited selfies, and charges against her included blasphemy and encouraging corruption among young people. Within days of the sentence being reported, she was released on bail while she appealed.
Her case drew international attention because it combined a bizarre internet persona with the very real limits Iran places on how women may present themselves, online and off.
Who is Sahar Tabar?
Khishvand was born in Tehran in 2001, according to Wikipedia. She became known around 2017 for Instagram photos showing a gaunt, hollow-cheeked face with an exaggerated upturned nose, huge eyes and swollen lips. Foreign tabloids ran stories claiming she had undergone around 50 cosmetic operations in an attempt to look like Angelina Jolie.
That story was largely wrong. In a 2017 interview she said the effect came mostly from make-up and Photoshop, combined with a nose job, liposuction and lip fillers. She also denied trying to resemble Jolie, saying her edited look was inspired by the title character of Tim Burton's animated film Corpse Bride. In her own words, as reported by RT: "My fans know that this is not my real face."
Arrest, charges and the 10-year sentence
Iranian police arrested Khishvand on 5 October 2019, and the Tasnim news agency listed charges including blasphemy, inciting violence, acquiring property illegally, breaching the dress code and encouraging young people toward corruption. Iranian state television later aired an interview in which she appeared without heavy make-up and was introduced as a "zombie"; rights groups criticised such broadcasts as forced public confessions.
On 11 December 2020, Iranian-American journalist and activist Masih Alinejad wrote that the young woman had received a 10-year sentence and urged Angelina Jolie to speak up. Alinejad argued that Tabar's photos had been a joke and that "Her joke landed her in jail."
I call on Angelina Jolie to help an Iranian 19-year-old girl who received 10 years prison sentence for using makeup & Photoshop to turn herself into Angelina.
— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) December 11, 2020
Islamic Republic has a history of tormenting women. We need to be united against this gender apartheid pic.twitter.com/Z5Y8yMsY76
Alinejad's message was widely reported. At the time, Khishvand had already spent more than a year in detention, much of it during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Release on bail
Days after the sentence became public, Iranian media reported that her detention order had been converted to bail and that she had been freed, as Global News reported. Khishvand later said she had been cleared of two of the charges and had appealed the rest. Her case drew comparisons with other young Instagram users in Iran who were arrested for dancing videos or for photos without a hijab.
The details of any final verdict have not been widely reported, so the outcome of her appeal remains unclear from public sources.
Human rights organisations pointed to her case as an example of how Iran's courts use vague morality charges against young social media users. Many of those arrested were teenagers or people in their early twenties, and several were shown on state television expressing regret, a practice that critics say pressures detainees and shames them in front of the public. Khishvand was 18 at the time of her arrest and 19 when the sentence was reported.
Iran's public decency laws in context
Iran requires women to cover their hair in public and to dress modestly, rules enforced by the morality police and the courts. Charges such as "spreading corruption" or "insulting Islamic values" are broadly worded and have been used against singers, dancers, bloggers and fashion influencers.
Resistance to these rules has grown in waves. Between late 2017 and 2018, a number of women, known as the Girls of Revolution Street, stood on utility boxes in public and waved their headscarves on sticks. Several were arrested and some received long prison terms. Alinejad's "My Stealthy Freedom" campaign encouraged women to share photos of themselves without the hijab.
The largest challenge came in September 2022, after 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died in the custody of the morality police. The "Woman, Life, Freedom" protests that followed spread across the country and were met with a harsh crackdown, including executions of some protesters. Many women still go out in public without a headscarf, despite official attempts to toughen penalties.
What the case says about online identity
Khishvand's photos were clearly edited and, by her own account, a kind of performance. Yet they were treated as a threat to public morals, and her nickname was used to mock her on state television. The case shows how online self-expression can become a legal risk in countries where authorities treat appearance as a matter of state concern.
Her experience also fits a broader pattern. Instagram is one of the few major Western platforms not blocked in Iran for most of this period, which made it a space for creativity, business and quiet rebellion. That visibility has made its most eye-catching users easy targets when authorities decide to send a message.
It is also a lesson for readers elsewhere. The viral "50 surgeries" story was repeated by many outlets without checking, which turned a teenager's digital experiment into a global freak show. When you see an extreme image online, it is worth asking first whether it has been edited, and second who benefits from the story built around it.
Sources: Wikipedia: Sahar Tabar; Global News, December 2020; RT (quote from Sahar Tabar). Tweet by Masih Alinejad.
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