Iranian Court Sentences Musicians to Flogging for YouTube Concert Without Hijab

An Iranian court has sentenced nine performers to 74 lashes each for their participation in an online concert deemed to violate Islamic public morality standards. Singer Parastoo Ahmadi, musicians Ehsan Beiraqdar and Soheil Faqih Nasiri, and six members of the production team were convicted by the Qom Provincial Criminal Court following their December 2025 broadcast of the Caravanserai Concert on YouTube. The court found the group guilty of producing and publishing "obscene and immoral content" on cyberspace platforms, citing Ahmadi's performance without a hijab as particularly offensive to Islamic norms.

In addition to the corporal punishment, all nine defendants face a two-year travel ban and a two-year restriction on any artistic activity. The prosecution charged them under Article 638 of Iran's Islamic Penal Code, which criminalizes performances deemed offensive to public decency such as appearing without a hijab, and Article 743 of the Computer Crimes Law, which targets online content that authorities claim promotes corruption or violates public morality. Under Iran's strict Islamic rules, women are also prohibited from singing before mixed-gender audiences, a restriction the artists violated during their performance.

The case began when the artists were arrested following their December 2025 YouTube broadcast and subsequently summoned to appear before Iran's Prosecutor's Office for Moral Security in January 2026. The sentence has drawn criticism from human rights advocates and legal experts. Attorney Mohammad Hadi Jafarpour, represented through the legal advocacy organization Dadban, argued that Iranian law does not criminalize women singing and that such interpretations of the penal code lack legal merit.

The ruling has sparked international condemnation. Iranian-American journalist and activist Masih Alinejad used social media to criticize the verdict, stating that a regime willing to flog women for showing their hair and singing cannot be considered a normal government, characterizing it as "apartheid against women." The case underscores ongoing tensions in Iran between cultural expression and strict enforcement of Islamic codes governing public conduct and online speech.