A well-liked Iranian musician who used to be arrested two years in the past all through a crackdown on artists and lecturers has been punished with 74 lashes in what activists mentioned on Thursday used to be a bid to humiliate him for supporting a national rebellion.
The musician, Mehdi Yarrahi, 43, used to be subjected to the flogging via officials of the Morality Safety Prosecutor’s Workplace in Tehran on Wednesday, his attorney Zahra Minuei mentioned on social media. The punishment, which Iran’s Innovative Courtroom had sentenced him to, introduced an finish to a yearslong felony case.
“He who isn’t keen to pay the associated fee for freedom does no longer deserve freedom,” Mr. Yarrahi mentioned in a put up on his reliable X account on Wednesday. He thanked his criminal group and mentioned, “Wishing for liberation.”
Mostafa Nili, any other attorney representing Mr. Yarrahi, mentioned on Thursday that his consumer used to be not able to take a seat or lean on his again on account of the punishment. The United Countries’ Global Invoice of Human Rights strictly prohibits flogging, calling it inhumane and degrading.
The intense punishment comes as Iran’s artist group celebrates two Iranian administrators who on Sunday gained an Oscar for an animated brief that were nominated via Iran. On social media, some Iranians identified in outrage that whilst outdoor the rustic Iranian artists have been being commemorated with accolades, inside of they confronted abusive remedy via the federal government.
Mr. Yarrahi used to be arrested in a wave of detentions that aimed to quell any protests marking the anniversary of a 2022 rebellion by which protests led via younger folks, in particular females, rocked Iran’s religiously conservative status quo.
The ones protests erupted after 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died in police custody after being arrested on accusations of violating Iran’s necessary hijab rule. The 2022 demonstrations swelled to almost six months of national rebellion, with protesters hard the top of the Islamic cleric’s rule. They ended with brutal crackdowns that resulted within the killing of greater than 500 folks, the arrest of tens of 1000’s extra and the executions of a number of protesters.
Mr. Yarrahi used to be one of the artists who added their voices to the women-led rebellion. Within the months earlier than the primary anniversary of the protests, he launched “Roosarito,” a music praising Iranian females who rejected the hijab rule and uncovered their hair as an act of civil disobedience.
“Take off your shawl, let your hair float,” he sang in a video that featured a girl dancing, her exposed hair swaying.
Mr. Yarrahi, who made his tune in secret and launched it simplest on-line to keep away from censorship, confronted speedy punishment. The police rounded him up together with dozens of scholars, lecturers, newshounds and artists.
On the time, the judiciary mentioned Mr. Yarrahi had launched an “unlawful music” that confounded the “morals and norms of an Islamic society.”
Iran’s state information media reported that all through the raid on Mr. Yarrahi’s house, the protection forces had discovered alcohol, violating a regulation that bans the intake and ownership of alcohol.
He used to be first of all sentenced to 2 years and 8 months in jail, the singer mentioned in a video revealed on social media closing week. However his sentence used to be commuted to at least one 12 months as he skilled “deficient bodily well being,” he mentioned, and used to be then later commuted to accommodate arrest with 74 lashes.
For that 12 months, Mr. Yarrahi used to be confined to his house and wore an digital ankle cuff, he mentioned. “I’ve spent that twelve months, and it’s completed now,” he added.
Now unfastened, Mr. Yarrahi has vowed no longer to go back to the level, as an act of unity with Iranian females.
“Finally those years of being banned from paintings, I perceive higher the struggling of the Iranian females,” he mentioned within the video.
Mr. Nili mentioned on social media on Thursday that he “used to be at the back of the door and may just pay attention the sound of the lashes.”
“I may just pay attention him shouting, ‘Thanks, God!’ after every lash,” Mr. Nili mentioned.
Iran’s artist group and a few well-known musicians, outside and inside the rustic, have rallied at the back of Mr. Yarrahi, sharing his image on social media and praising him as a hero of the folks.
Within the wake of the unrest, many Iranian musicians and artists persisted chronic harassment from the protection police or have been barred from acting, mentioned Mehdi Kouhian, a attorney who’s a member of the Committee for Advocacy for Prosecuted Artists, which used to be shaped all through the antigovernment demonstrations.
Others fled the rustic, the goals of presidency forces and hard-line teams, he added.
The lashes given to Mr. Yarrahi have been an effort to humiliate the musician “amongst his lovers or spiritual strata of Iranian society,” Mr. Kouhian mentioned.
No less than 12 of the protesters who have been arrested all through the crackdown were sentenced to loss of life or to long jail phrases, in step with Amnesty Global.
