Iranian Instagram star Fatemeh Khishvand, most popularly known as ‘zombie Angelina Jolie’, has been diagnosed with COVID-19 and is currently on ventilator support, according to reports.
Known on Instagram as Sahar Tabar, she is currently lodged in an Iranian prison after she was arrested for social media activity as part of Iran’s crackdown on Instagram stars. According to NYPost, her lawyer’s request for her release in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic was turned down by the judge. “We find it unacceptable that this young woman has now caught the coronavirus in these circumstances while her detention order has been extended during all this time in jail,” Sputnik News quoted her lawyer as saying.
22-year-old Fatemeh was arrested in October, and faced charges including blasphemy and encouraging the corruption of young people, for expressing herself on her widely-followed Instagram account. After her arrest, she was portrayed on Iranian state TV as an example of how social media can ruin young lives.
She shot to fame in 2017 with claims that she had undergone over 50 surgeries to look like her favourite star – Angelina Jolie. Later, however, she revealed her real look to fans and said that the Jolie look, with the hollow cheeks and inflated lips, was just a work of editing and heavy makeup.
Iran said on Friday that 89 more people have died from the novel coronavirus, as the country's official fatalities remained in double figures for a fourth day. Iran is the most affected country in the Middle East, with number of positive cases close to 80,000.
Health ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour told a news conference that the latest deaths brought the overall toll to 4,958. The government of President Hassan Rouhani has struggled to contain the outbreak and keep Iran's fragile and sanctions-hit economy running.
It shut schools and universities, postponed major events and imposed a range of other restrictions, but it has stopped short of ordering lockdowns.
Iran is to allow small businesses in Tehran to reopen on Saturday, following similar measures for those outside the capital last week.
-with AFP inputs