Amnesty says Iran must halt plans to flog singer, musicians over 2024 livestream

Amnesty International calls on Iran to halt any plans to punish a singer and eight other musicians with dozens of lashes each after they livestreamed a performance on YouTube.

The concert featured Parastoo Ahmadi singing powerful, mournful songs to an empty audience, on a dimly lit stage adorned solely with a large Persian carpet in the grounds of a traditional caravanserai complex.

Ahmadi was backed by a pianist, drummer, guitarist and bassist, and all the musicians wore black.

The singer was dressed in a long gown and wore deep red lipstick without adhering to strict Islamic dress code, in a country where women are banned from singing and must cover their hair in public.

A court sentenced the group to 74 lashes each, a sentence that was upheld by an appeals court in the northern province of Qom on Friday, according to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) and local media.

“Iranian authorities must immediately halt any plans to carry out floggings, which amount to torture, against singer Parastoo Ahmadi and eight others in connection to a live-streamed 2024 concert in Qom province,” Amnesty says in a statement posted on Instagram.

“Flogging constitutes cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment, and violates the absolute prohibition on torture and other ill-treatment. These flogging sentences highlight the inhumanity and brutality of Iran’s justice system and its role in the ongoing assault on women’s rights,” the group says.

Ahmadi livestreamed the concert on her own channel in December 2024, where it has been viewed three million times. It has also been viewed many thousands of times more on other channels.

Increasing numbers of Iranian women are appearing without hijab, especially since protests erupted following the death in custody of a woman named Mahsa Amini in September 2022. She had been arrested for allegedly violating the dress code.

Amnesty says Iran must “also abolish compulsory veiling and corporal punishment and end the criminalization of freedom of expression.”