New Delhi: With Iran’s push for hijab, chastity and modesty laws reaching an all-time high, Iranian singer Parastoo Ahmadi has now been sentenced to 74 lashes for performing without a head cover.
The Guardian reported that Ahmadi performed in a concert live-streamed on her YouTube channel in 2024, which resulted in a two-year ban on leaving the country and a two-year ban on engaging in artistic activities.
Although the official ruling has not yet been made public, it includes offending public decency, as well as the publication of “vulgar and immoral content.”
Bahar Ghandehari of the Center for Human Rights in Iran, an American non-profit organisation, said that the lashes reflect the Iranian regime’s efforts to deter cultural dissent.
“Ahmadi’s punishment of 74 lashes for merely singing and appearing without a hijab is yet another reminder that human rights conditions in Iran have not changed, despite the Iranian authorities’ wartime propaganda campaign aimed at improving their image,” Ghandehari told The Guardian.
Journalist Masih Alinejad, in an X post, said that a woman’s voice is scarier to the Iranian government than any superpower.
“A regime that whips women for showing their hair and singing, there’s not a normal government. This is called apartheid against women,” Alinejad wrote.
Ahmadi and her fellow musicians named in the case have not yet made a statement on the floggings and the ban.
Social media weighs in
The Iranian government’s efforts to uphold its stringent modesty laws have since left social media fuming.
One X user said, “How terrifying must an ideology—”‘religion’—be in which a woman’s singing is punished almost as severely as kidnapping and rape.”
While others said that such “crimes” must not stand.
Another questioned how singing can be a crime in the modern world: “In what world is singing a crime punishable by 74 lashes?”
One X user dubbed the Islamic Republic of Iran “the enemy of women, of music, of joy, and of life itself.”