Iran sentences singer Parastoo Ahmadi, musicians to lashes and travel ban

Iran’s Criminal Court in Qom Province sentenced singer Parastoo Ahmadi and eight musicians and production crew members to 74 discretionary lashes each, along with two-year bans on artistic activity and travel, over an online concert filmed without the mandatory hijab. The preliminary verdict, which still can be appealed, deepens scrutiny of how the state polices women’s public expression even as it projects a softer image.

The case centers on a performance Ahmadi posted in late 2024 from an undisclosed caravanserai. Ahmadi, 29, described it as an “imaginary concert,” and the 27-minute set featured four band members and a patriotic folk song, “Az Khoone Javanane Vatan” (“From the Blood of the Youth of the homeland”). The video spread quickly, drawing close to 2 million views on YouTube, and authorities briefly detained several people involved in its production. Ahmadi and two band members were also arrested from Mazandaran in northern Iran after the video circulated.

Court papers cited Article 638 of Iran’s Islamic Penal Code and Article 743 of the Computer Crimes Law, and ordered the convictions publicized in state media. Among the people caught in the ruling were Milad Panahipour, Bahar Ghandehari, Moein Khazaeli and Tahmineh Monzavi, part of the wider production team that helped shape the livestream into a national flashpoint.

Human-rights advocates say the punishment shows that conditions for women artists in Iran have not improved. The Center for Human Rights in Iran has framed the case as evidence that Tehran’s wartime image campaign has not changed its treatment of women, while a human-rights lawyer cited in reporting said women’s singing and music production are not crimes under Iranian law and could not reasonably be treated as obscene content.

The sentence has revived debate over the limits of cultural defiance after the Woman, Life, Freedom protests, which made female visibility and artistic freedom central political issues. For now, the Qom ruling stands as a stark reminder that a single concert video can still trigger corporal punishment, travel restrictions and a two-year silence for the artists involved.