Iran sentences female singer to 74 lashes for performing without hijab

An Iranian court has sentenced a female singer to 74 lashes and banned her from performing or leaving the country for two years after she appeared on stage without a hijab, drawing sharp international condemnation.

According to The New York Times, a court in Iran's Qom province held a closed trial last week and sentenced singer Farastu Ahmadi, 29, to 74 lashes. The court also imposed a two-year ban on performing and traveling abroad on Ahmadi and eight colleagues who took part in the performance.

However, two of the nine were not even in Iran when the ruling was handed down.

The court found that Ahmadi and the others had "produced and published vulgar and immoral content on cyberspace platforms, harming public morality."

The case began when Ahmadi posted a video of the performance on her YouTube channel in December 2024. In the footage, she appeared on stage in a black slip dress without a hijab, singing Iranian folk songs with her hair, arms and shoulders uncovered.

Ahmadi accompanied the video with a message saying, "Singing for my homeland, which I love passionately, is an inalienable right of mine." The video drew wide attention, surpassing 3 million views shortly after it was posted.

As the video spread online, Ahmadi, a pianist, a guitarist and several other members of the production were detained. They were later released, but Iranian authorities formally filed charges against them.

Iran requires women aged 9 and older to wear a hijab in public. Violations can result in arrest, fines or flogging.

Human rights groups criticized the ruling as an attempt to suppress women's freedoms and tighten internal repression. Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, director of Iran Human Rights, a Norway-based organization, called the sentence "an inhumane and degrading punishment for nothing more than singing without a hijab," adding that it was "a dangerous signal that the regime may be intensifying its crackdown on women following recent shifts in the international landscape."

The case has drawn comparisons to the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini, which shook Iranian society. Amini, then a university student, died after police detained her for allegedly wearing her hijab improperly, sparking nationwide anti-government protests. More than 500 people were reported killed and over 20,000 detained during the subsequent crackdown.