Iranian artist, Parastoo Ahmadi has been reportedly sentenced to 74 lashes for performing without wearing a hijab
29 year-old Parastoo Ahmadi and eight members of a production team played a concert livestreamed on Ahmadi’s YouTube channel in 2024.
She sang a historic patriotic anthem, ‘Az Khoon-e Javanan-e Vatan’ (‘From the Blood of the Youth of the Homeland’) and the video of the “Caravanserai Concert” has since gone viral.
According to rights activists, the criminal court of Qom province sentenced her and several musicians to flogging, a two-year ban on leaving the country, and a two-year ban on engaging in artistic activities.
The ruling is yet to be published by the official judiciary news agency.
However, the court documents seen by lawyers and rights groups reportedly state that the charges include offending public decency through the production and publication of “vulgar and immoral content” online.
Human rights activists say that Ahmadi’s sentencing is proof that the situation in Iran has not changed.
Bahar Ghandehari, the director of advocacy at the US-based Center for Human Rights in Iran, said that Ahmadi’s punishment of 74 lashes “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.”
She added that the contrast between official imagery and the prosecution of artists exposed “the gap between the regime’s propaganda and reality”.
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