An Iranian court has rejected a singer’s appeal against a sentence of 74 lashes and a ban on work and travel, making final a decision that prompted international outrage over Iran’s criminalisation of artistic activity.
An appeal court chief in the city of Qom rejected a petition by performer Parastoo Ahmadi, 29, and seven members of her team over sentences they received for a performance.
Appeals court branch head Abbas Gharabaghi claimed evidence and arguments presented by lawyers was “insufficient”, the BBC reported. Another member of Ms Ahmadi's team did not file an appeal for their sentence.
A judge handed the artists sentences of 74 lashes in June this year, as well as a two-year ban on travelling and taking part in artistic activities.
A court in Qom had convicted them on charges of “hurting public decency” by publishing “vulgar and immoral content in cyberspace” over a concert performed without an audience and broadcast online in December 2024.
In the video, which has been viewed more than three million times on YouTube, Ms Ahmadi appears without a headscarf, which Iranian law says women must wear in public. She also sings alone, which Iranian authorities have banned women from doing since the 1979 revolution that brought the current clerical leadership to power.
Before the live-stream began, Ms Ahmadi’s YouTube page published a message in which she described herself as a “girl who wants to sing for the people I love”.
“This is a right I could not ignore; singing for the land I love passionately. Here, in this part of our beloved Iran, where history and our myths intertwine, hear my voice in this imaginary concert, and imagine this beautiful homeland,” the message read.
It is not clear when or where the lashings will be carried out. When the sentences were handed down in June, the US-based Abdorrahman Boroumand Centre, which monitors human rights violations in Iran, described the use of lashings as a “degrading and violent punishment” mostly deployed against political activists and ethnic minorities.
The dismissal of Ms Ahmadi’s appeal comes as human rights observers report an intensified crackdown on dissent in Iran. Authorities have continued to arrest and execute people involved in previous rounds of anti-government protests, using the cover of wartime conditions during the continuing conflict with the US and Israel to intensify suppression, human rights organisations have said.
Dadban, a group of volunteer lawyers outside Iran, said the rejection could indicate intensifying pressure” on artistic and cultural activities in the country, and questioned the legal basis for the ruling.
“Singing, playing an instrument, photography, or participating in the production and release of a musical work does not, in itself, constitute the production of obscene material; extending such criminal charges to artistic activities raises serious questions regarding fundamental principles of criminal law,” Dadban said in a statement published on social media.
Since a widespread anti-government uprising in 2022 sparked by the death in police custody of a woman accused of violating mandatory hijab rules, Iranians have been increasingly flouting the regulations. In large cities such as the capital Tehran, women are increasingly appearing in public and on social media without covering their heads.
But the rules remain in place on paper and this week hardline judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei demanded authorities to carry out a renewed crackdown on opposition to the mandatory hijab rules. “What is really necessary is to shut this whole thing down,” he said in a video published by the judiciary’s Mizan news agency in which he described non-compliance as “nudity” and “social abnormalities.”
