An Iranian lawyer said an appeals court had confirmed the sentence of 74 lashes to a well-known singer who performed without wearing the legal hijab headscarf.
Parastoo Ahmadi sang in a sleeveless dress during a concert broadcast live on her YouTube channel in December 2024. Iranian law prohibits women from performing in public and requires women to wear headscarves and modest clothing.
After the 29-year-old singer's video racked up millions of views and went viral, Iran's judiciary filed a lawsuit against her, saying the performance "violated national laws and cultural norms."
According to reports, a criminal court in Qom found Ahmadi and eight members of his band and production team guilty in June on charges including "offending public morals" by publishing "obscene and indecent content."
In addition to being sentenced to 74 lashes, they were also banned from engaging in audio-visual activities and banned from leaving the country for two years.
According to the defense lawyer, last Friday (September 25), the defendant's appeal was "rejected" by the higher court without a hearing.
One of the lawyers told the BBC: "In our opinion, hosting this concert does not constitute a crime at all. The court of first instance imposed one of the harshest sentences on these charges, although fines or lesser penalties are also available."
"Although the Court of Appeal had the option of holding a trial, it did not hold a trial and instead upheld the original verdict. It seems that the main reason for this judgment was to prevent similar incidents from happening again."
After the news of the first trial verdict came out, it triggered widespread reactions on Iranian social media.
Exiled singer Googoosh wrote on Instagram at the time: "May these dark days end, may women regain the freedom to choose how they live and dress, and may artistic expression once again flourish in our cherished homeland."
Musician Hossein Alizadeh said he was "willing to bear 70 lashes in Palastore Ahmadi's place".
Human rights activists also condemned the verdict. Amnesty International warned that "caning constitutes cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment and violates the absolute prohibition of torture and other ill-treatment."
In January 2024, Roya Heshmati, a Kurdish-Iranian activist, was found guilty of "violating public morals" and received 74 lashes for posting a photo on social media without a headscarf.
According to the Kurdish human rights group Hengaw, she said a female police officer forcibly placed a hijab on her head at a prosecutor's office in Derihi, after which a male police officer whipped her on her shoulders, back, buttocks and legs.
Under Iranian law - which is based on the country's interpretation of Sharia law - women and girls who reach puberty must cover their hair with a headscarf and wear long, loose-fitting clothing to cover their curves.
In 2022, Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, died after being detained by morality police in Delhi in September of that year because she was accused of "not wearing a headscarf properly." This immediately triggered a wave of demonstrations that swept across the Islamic Republic.
Women have burned headscarves or waved them aloft during nationwide demonstrations against the religious establishment. Security forces subsequently launched a crackdown, resulting in hundreds of deaths.
Since then, many women and girls have publicly refused to adhere to dress codes and stopped covering their hair altogether. The authorities responded with waves of arrests, warnings, business closures and other measures.
Addressing the issue of hijab enforcement earlier this month, conservative politician Gholamali Haddad-Adel, a member of the National Interest Council, said that because Iran is at war with the United States and Israel, the authorities "cannot devote as much energy to this front as they should at the moment." He is also the father-in-law of Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei.
