Iran court upholds lashes sentence for singer who performed without hijab

An Iranian appeals court has confirmed a sentence of seventy-four lashes against singer Parastoo Ahmadi after she performed without the mandatory hijab, according to her lawyers. According to legal representatives, the higher court rejected the appeal without holding a hearing, opting instead to enforce the severe corporal punishment and uphold professional and travel bans to deter similar acts of cultural defiance.

The controversy began when Yahoo News reported that the twenty-nine-year-old artist sang in a sleeveless dress with her hair uncovered during a concert broadcast on her YouTube channel in December 2024. Because the video quickly accumulated millions of views, Iran's judiciary launched proceedings, describing the performance as a violation of the country's legal and cultural regulations.

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Singing without a hijab in Iran gets Parastoo Ahmadi 74 lashes

In June, a criminal court in Qom found Ahmadi and eight members of her band and production team guilty of offences including "offending public decency" through the publication of "obscene and indecent material." Alongside the seventy-four lashes, the court imposed a two-year ban on leaving the country and a two-year prohibition on audiovisual and artistic activities. On Friday, defense lawyers confirmed that the defendants' appeal was rejected by a higher court without a hearing. One of the defense lawyers told the BBC that the trial court imposed one of the harshest available punishments despite lesser penalties being accessible, adding that the appeals court intended the ruling to deter recurrence.

Legal analysts have challenged the validity of the prosecution. Moein Khazaeli, a human rights lawyer at Dadban, stated that singing, performing music, and producing musical works by women are not explicitly criminalized under Iranian law and cannot reasonably be construed as distributing obscene content. According to Roya News, the court based its verdict on Articles 638 and 743 of the Islamic Penal Code alongside the Computer Crimes Law. Iranian law mandates that women and girls above puberty cover their hair and wear loose clothing based on the state's interpretation of Sharia.

The ruling drew swift condemnation from international human rights bodies. Bahar Ghandehari, director of advocacy at the Center for Human Rights in Iran, noted in reporting by The Guardian that the punishment highlights how internal conditions remain unchanged despite official wartime propaganda campaigns. Amnesty International warned that flogging constitutes cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment that violates the absolute prohibition on torture. Similar corporal punishments have previously targeted dissidents, such as Kurdish-Iranian activist Roya Heshmati, who was whipped seventy-four times in January 2024 after being convicted over a social media photograph showing her without a hijab.

The wider world coverage shows that the sentence arrives amid deep political tension. Gholamali Haddad-Adel, a conservative politician and Expediency Council member whose daughter is married to Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, acknowledged earlier this month that ongoing conflicts meant authorities could not prioritize hijab enforcement as intensely as planned. However, cultural repression against musicians remains severe, with figures like rapper Toomaj Salehi and singer Mehdi Yarrahi also facing imprisonment or flogging sentences for dissent, as detailed by Index on Censorship.

Exiled artists and cultural figures have rallied around Ahmadi. Iranian-British actor Nazanin Boniadi argued that the ruling proves the state's machinery of repression remains intact. Exiled singer Googoosh posted on Instagram expressing hope that women might regain the freedom to choose how they live, while musician Hossein Alizadeh publicly offered to take seventy lashes in Ahmadi's place. Activist Masih Alinejad wrote on social media that the regime fears a woman's voice more than any superpower, describing the enforcement as a form of gender apartheid.

With the appeals court rejecting the challenge, the final judgment is now enforceable, leaving Ahmadi and her co-defendants facing imminent execution of the corporal punishment and the enforcement of their professional and travel bans.