More than two years after a young woman’s death in custody triggered widespread protests in Iran, singer Mehdi Yarrahi received 74 lashes over a protest song, reports the Guardian.
Initially convicted in January 2024 of acting unlawfully by releasing “Roo Sarito” (Your Headscarf) in September 2023 to mark the one-year anniversary of the Women, Life, Freedom uprising, the well-known Iranian protest singer faced a one-year prison sentence. That was later converted to electronic ankle monitoring, which ended in December 2024, leading to his release.
The return of the 15 billion toman (US$1,472,470) bail paid by a third party, however, was dependent on his flogging, carried out this week. Yarrahi condemned the 74 lashes as “inhuman torture” in a post on X but accepted his punishment. “He who is not willing to pay the price of freedom does not deserve freedom,” he wrote to his more than 1 million followers on Instagram. “Wishing you freedom.”
Nobel peace prize laureate Narges Mohammadi denounced the dozens of lashes as “revenge for [Mehdi’s] support for the women of Iran” in an Instagram post. “The flogging on Mehdi’s body is a whip on the proud, resistant women of Iran and the flourishing and powerful soul of the Women, Life, Freedom movement.”
The movement emerged in response to the killing of a young Kurdish-Iranian woman in police custody. Mahsa Amini, 22, died under mysterious circumstances after the morality police arrested her for allegedly wearing her hijab improperly. Protestors soon flooded the streets, calling for an end to the compulsory hijab law and other laws designed to oppress and discriminate against women in Iran.
As Yarrahi marked the one-year anniversary of the protest with his song, the Iranian parliament used the occasion to pass a far stricter hijab law, which included prison sentences of up to 15 years for repeated offenders and up to 10 years for anyone organising against the law.
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The controversial law, which still required ratification by the Guardian Council, was put on pause in December 2024 amid outcry from human rights organisations and fears that it could reignite the protest movement. Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, a reformist elected in July 2024 after the unexpected death of Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash, has also indicated his opposition to the bill, although he would have few options if it passed.
Also in December, Amnesty International raised the alarm that at least 10 individuals in Iran are under death sentences in connection with the Women, Life, Freedom movement. Their executions would double the number associated with the protests, 10 having already been executed so far following “grossly unfair sham trials,” torture and horrific mistreatment in prison.
