An Iranian parkour athlete has been arrested for committing ‘vulgar’ acts after he posted photos online of himself kissing a woman on Tehran’s rooftops, police said today.
The individual appeared to be Alireza Japalaghy, 28, a Tehran-based parkour athlete with more than 133,000 followers on Instagram.
Tehran’s police chief Hossein Rahimi told ISNA: ‘This individual has been arrested by Tehran’s cyber police.
‘We are against this individual and his companion’s norm-breaking and vulgar behaviour and the police and the judiciary will certainly deal with them.’
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He did not name the person who was arrested.
Japalaghy had posted a series of photos and videos last week showing him and an unidentified woman in sports wear hanging off buildings and kissing.
Under the Islamic dress code, women can only show their face, hands and feet in public and are supposed to wear only modest colours.
Video: Iranian parkour athlete kisses woman on Tehran’s rooftops
In an Instagram video on Monday, he said he had received ‘suspicious calls’ telling him to turn himself in or be arrested publicly.
His brother posted an update on the same account the next day, saying Alireza had been taken from their home and arrested.
According to police chief Rahimi, the woman in Japalaghy’s photos ‘will also be arrested soon’.
Parkour is an extreme sport born in France in the 1990s that combines the efficiency of movement across the urban landscape with death-defying leaps.
It has a following in neighbourhoods of west Tehran, where high-rise residential buildings are closely connected.
Japalaghy started free-running when his father – an ex policeman – went missing during his retirement and never came home.
He previously told his fans: ‘What better way for me to get rid of all my emotions than by channelling them through my career, doing all of this parkour?
‘Free-running stunts and doing things that no one can even dream of lets me channel all of my misery.
‘We started a file in court. The search and inspections began but nobody could tell us what happened to him even a minute after he was gone. He has faded from existence.
Video: Iranian man ‘honours father’ by becoming daredevil parkour master
‘You can’t even imagine the aftermath and mental pressure me and my family went through due to my father’s disappearance.’
The athlete is also seen in the compilation video backflipping on to the top of a multi storey car park before putting his trust into a colleague, using his arm as a pivot to swing himself onto solid ground from a massive height.
Among several other stunts, Japalaghy can be seen exercising on the precipice of several buildings.
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