Iran Confirms Stunning Singer Must Endure 74 Brutal Lashes After Defiant Hijab-Free Concert Goes Viral

A defiant Iranian singer and her eight-strong team have had their brutal sentence confirmed by an appeals court – 74 lashes each, plus two-year bans on performing and leaving the country – simply for appearing on stage without a headscarf.euronews.com

Parastoo Ahmadi, 29, posted on Instagram late Friday that Qom’s Appeals Court Chamber 16 had upheld the original June ruling “without any change.” The sentence is now final and must be carried out.

The attractive brunette first sparked the regime’s fury in December 2024 when she livestreamed an “imaginary concert” from an ancient caravanserai near Qom. Wearing a slinky black strapless dress, her long hair tumbling over her shoulders and arms bare, she belted out the patriotic anthem “Az Khoone Javanane Vatan” – From the Blood of the Youth of the Homeland – to an empty courtyard while a pianist and drummer accompanied her. The video has since racked up millions of views.

Iranian authorities branded the performance “obscene and immoral content” and an “attack on public morals.” Women have been banned from singing solo in public and required to cover their hair since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Ahmadi and her musicians were briefly detained after the clip went viral, then released amid public outcry.

Human rights groups have condemned the flogging as “inhumane and humiliating.” Critics say the timing – after a recent US-Iran deal – signals the clerical regime is doubling down on its crackdown on women rather than easing up. Ahmadi herself has described singing as a right she “cannot ignore.”The singer and her colleagues now face humiliating corporal punishment as well as being silenced and trapped inside Iran for two years. The court rejected all their objections.