A criminal court in Iran’s Qom province has sentenced singer Parastoo Ahmadi to 74 lashes, a two-year ban on leaving the country and a two-year prohibition on all artistic activity, after she appeared without a hijab during a YouTube livestream concert in December 2024. Eight members of her production team and accompanying musicians received identical penalties. The verdict, which rights groups and legal advocates have reviewed but which Iranian state media have not officially published, stems from charges of offending public decency through the production and dissemination of what the court termed “vulgar and immoral content” online.

According to the court documents, the performance violated legal and religious norms that bar women from singing solo before mixed audiences and require the wearing of the hijab in public settings. Iranian authorities have not publicly elaborated on the ruling. Human rights lawyer Moein Khazaeli, speaking from Iran, argued that neither singing nor producing musical works by women is criminalised under Iranian penal law, and that flogging constitutes torture under international standards. The US-based Center for Human Rights in Iran described the sentence as evidence that human rights conditions in the country remain unchanged, despite what it called a wartime propaganda campaign by Iranian authorities to improve their international image.

The sentencing occurs against a backdrop of widespread civil disobedience over compulsory veiling since the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini in morality-police custody. In many Iranian cities, women routinely appear without the hijab, and enforcement has been visibly relaxed since early 2025. Yet the judiciary continues to pursue high-profile cultural figures. The Qom court’s decision was not carried by official news agencies, a step analysts in the region interpret as an attempt to limit domestic protest. The case also coincides with diplomatic efforts by Tehran to reset relations with Western capitals following an interim agreement with Washington, a context in which the flogging sentence has drawn renewed scrutiny from international human rights monitors.

Ahmadi and her co-defendants were briefly detained after the video, which garnered millions of views, and later released before formal proceedings began. The verdict can be appealed, and legal representatives are expected to challenge both the factual basis of the obscenity charge and the use of corporal punishment. The dossier remains open, with no date yet set for the execution of the sentence, while diaspora artists and advocacy organisations continue to press for diplomatic and legal intervention.