Iranian singer Parastoo Ahmadi has had a sentence of 74 lashes upheld after performing without a hijab in her viral “Imaginary Concert.”
What looked like a beautifully staged, audience-free music video has ended with a punishment that sounds almost medieval. An Iranian appeals court has upheld a sentence of 74 lashes against singer Parastoo Ahmadi over the online concert in which she performed without the mandatory hijab. She has also been barred from audiovisual work and from leaving Iran for two years. According to Ahmadi and Iranian media reports, the latest decision is final and enforceable.
The case stretches back to December 2024, when Ahmadi stepped into a historic caravanserai, dressed in black with her hair uncovered, and sang to an empty space while cameras rolled. There were no ticket holders, no cheering crowd and no conventional concert venue. There was, however, YouTube - and millions of people eventually watching.
The “Imaginary Concert” That Became Very Real
Ahmadi called the roughly 27-minute performance an “imaginary concert.” Accompanied by male musicians, she performed Iranian folk material and patriotic songs at the Deir Gachin caravanserai in Qom province. The setting was sparse: musicians in black, a Persian carpet, old brick architecture and Ahmadi at the center of it all without a headscarf.
The simplicity was part of what made the video so striking. Ahmadi was breaking more than one restriction at once. Iran requires women to observe mandatory hijab rules in public, while female solo singing before mixed audiences has also been heavily restricted since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Broadcasting the performance online effectively turned an empty venue into a public stage.
Ahmadi hardly concealed what she was doing. Before the performance, she described singing for the country she loved as a right she could not ignore. The concert was uploaded on December 11, 2024, and rapidly spread across social media despite YouTube being restricted inside Iran.
The authorities reacted almost immediately. A legal case was announced, Ahmadi's home was reportedly searched, and days later she was arrested in northern Iran. Musicians Ehsan Beiraghdar and Soheil Faghih-Nasiri were also detained. All three were subsequently released, but the case itself never disappeared.
74 Lashes, Plus Two Years Away From Music
In June 2026, a criminal court in Qom sentenced Ahmadi and members of the concert's musical and production team to 74 lashes, along with a two-year travel ban and a two-year prohibition on artistic activities. Court documents reported by IranWire cited provisions including Article 638 of Iran's Islamic Penal Code and Article 743 of the Computer Crimes Law, with the defendants accused of offending public decency through the publication of supposedly “vulgar and immoral” material online.
The sentence was initially open to appeal. That escape route now appears to have closed. On September 25, Ahmadi said that Branch 16 of the Qom Province Court of Appeal had issued its final decision in the Caravanserai Concert case. Reporting citing Tehran newspaper Ham-Mihan likewise said the appeal had been rejected and the flogging, travel restrictions and professional ban upheld.
Ahmadi's account, as reported by EFE, says the final ruling also applies to four musicians and four other people involved with the concert. Some reports have differed slightly over the number of defendants involved, but the core punishment against Ahmadi - 74 lashes and two years of travel and professional restrictions - has been consistently reported.
A Concert That Refused to Stay Inside an Empty Room
The timing makes the ruling particularly notable. Iranian women have increasingly appeared in public without headscarves since the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini in morality-police custody triggered the nationwide Woman, Life, Freedom protests. Enforcement has fluctuated since then, and recent reporting has described visibly looser dress-code enforcement in parts of Iran even though mandatory hijab laws remain on the books.
Ahmadi's case also sits inside a broader dispute over artistic expression. Human Rights Watch says Iranian authorities continue to impose flogging sentences and describes such corporal punishment as torture under international law. Iranian authorities, meanwhile, have framed cases like Ahmadi's around violations of public morality, religious requirements and rules governing artistic performances.
The strange detail at the center of the story remains the empty audience: Ahmadi did not need a packed arena to create a public event; a camera and an internet connection were enough. Nearly two years after she stood in that old caravanserai and sang into an otherwise vacant room, the performance is still producing consequences far beyond it.