In Iran, a singer was sentenced to 74 lashes for performing without a hijab
A court in Iran found the artists guilty of "insulting public decency."
The criminal court of Qom Province sentenced 29-year-old singer Parastoo Ahmadi and eight members of her creative team to 74 lashes for an online concert in which the artist appeared with her head uncovered. The authorities also banned the singer from engaging in any artistic activity and from leaving the country for two years. This was reported by The Guardian.
The cause of the repression was a live broadcast of a performance of the patriotic song "From the Blood of the Homeland's Youth" in December 2024. The video garnered millions of views on YouTube, after which police detained Ahmadi and several musicians. The court found the artists guilty of "insulting public decency" through the publication of "vulgar and immoral content."
Human rights defenders and lawyers called the sentence a form of torture and inhumane treatment. Lawyer Moin Khazaeli emphasized that Iranian criminal law does not explicitly prohibit women from singing or making music, and therefore the charge of "obscenity" has no legal basis.
Actress Nazanin Boniadi noted that the flogging of a woman for her voice proves the unchanged nature of the country's machinery of repression, despite the authorities' attempts to improve their image abroad. The singer's colleagues stated that Ahmadi was aware of the consequences but refused to submit to censorship and fought for her right to be heard.
As SPZh reported, in Afghanistan, the Taliban introduced life sentences for women who renounce Islam.
