Two Iranian poets have been sentenced to lashes and imprisonment for their writings.

Mehdi Mousavi and Fatemeh Ekhtesari, who are famous in Iran for their postmodern poems, have been sentenced to 9 and 11 years in prison respectively. Both poets were also sentenced to receive 99 lashes.

According to the poets’ lawyer Amir Raeesian, Mousavi has been sentenced to six years in prison for blasphemy and three years for “carrying a tear gas spray.”

Fatemeh Ekhtesari was given a 7-year prison sentence for blasphemy and additionally sentenced to one year of imprisonment on the charge of “propaganda against the regime” and three years for “publishing immoral photos of her on the internet.”

Both were sentenced to 99 lashes for “shaking hands with a non-mahram.” A non-mahram is a person of the opposite sex, who is not a family member. According to Islamic sharia law a woman should cover her face for a non-mahram, and it is not permitted for non-mahrams to shake hands or kiss.

According to Raeesian, Mousavi had permission to carry a tear gas spray for self-defense, because he is a doctor. He also said that the blasphemy charge was related to their poems, but that the poems were published in a book that had received permission from Iran’s Culture Ministry.

On his Instagram profile, Mousavi commented on the verdict, calling it “unfair”. A prison sentence for writing poems is “a stigma against freedom of expression,” he wrote.

The two poets have previously been under arrest because of their poems. Two years ago they were jailed for more than a month.