Iranian Female Singer Sentenced to 74 Lashes for Performing Without a Hijab and Wearing a Dress

[Financial News] An Iranian court has sentenced a female singer to 74 lashes for performing without wearing a hijab. There are growing concerns that Iran's postwar leadership is tightening religious restrictions on women.
On the 23rd local time, The New York Times reported that the ruling was handed down last week in a closed trial at a court in Qom, Iran, against singer Parastu Ahmadi, 29.
Ahmadi and eight colleagues were also banned from performing and leaving the country for two years. The court said their offense was "producing and posting vulgar and immoral content on cyberspace platforms, thereby undermining public decency."
The video at the center of the case was released in December 2024. It showed Ahmadi performing in a black dress that exposed her hair, arms, and shoulders, without a hijab. The caption read, "Singing for this land that I love so deeply was a right I could not ignore." The video went viral, drawing 3 million views.
Authorities later began imposing sanctions. Ahmadi and two others, a pianist and a guitarist, were detained and later released. The authorities formally filed a case related to the video.
Human rights groups said Iran's leadership has been trying to intensify domestic repression after the war with the United States. Mahmoud Amiri-Moghaddam, director of Iran Human Rights (IHR), a Norway-based group, criticized the sentence, saying, "Sentencing Ahmadi to flogging simply for singing without a hijab is an inhumane and humiliating punishment," and added that it was "a dangerous sign that a regime emboldened by a peace agreement with the United States could further intensify its repression of women."
It is not known when the authorities plan to carry out the flogging against Ahmadi and the others. The Iranian government has previously carried out flogging against women accused of violating hijab rules or protesting them after the 2022 demonstrations.
gaa1003@fnnews.com Ahn Ga-eul Reporter