In Iran, a Singer Gets 74 Lashes for…Singing

WATCH: In Iran, Singer Anita Papist Gets 74 Lashes for Singing

The Iranian government continues to inflict savage punishments on female singers, both for the content of their songs and for their daring to sing without wearing the hijab. More on their continuing calvary can be found here: “Iranian singer Anita Papist sentenced to 74 lashes for ‘offending public decency’ by singing,” by Danielle Greyman-Kennard, Jerusalem Post, July 19, 2026:

Tehran-based singer Anita Papist was sentenced to 74 lashes for “offending public decency” by Branch 1088 of the Second Criminal Court at Tehran’s Ershad Judicial Complex, the musician and Iran rights groups announced over the weekend.

Papist, who posts videos of herself online singing in English and Persian without a head covering, confirmed that her passport was confiscated and her mobile phone blocked, punishments that the Iranian legal advocacy group Dadbaan said were “imposed solely for posting her artwork on social media.”

Dadbaan noted that singing and producing music are not themselves a crime, and said the sentence against Papist was “in conflict with Iran’s international obligations in the field of freedom of expression, freedom of cultural activities, and the prohibition of cruel, inhuman, or degrading punishment.”

We don’t know what she was singing about, but presumably it contained pre-Islamic and non-Islamic themes that would madden the religious police. And worse still, she was not wearing a hijab.

In recent months, the group said, Iran has cracked down significantly on female singers, even illegally taking control of artists’ personal social media accounts and publishing legal messages without their consent.

Ever since the widespread protests against the government in January, when members of the Basij militia, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and the state police shot down 40,000 protesters, the regime has cracked down on the slightest sign of disobedience to its strictures. Female singers have been a special target, especially if they are not wearing hijabs and thus defying the state.

Papist, thanking her fans for being her voice, reshared an image made by one of her followers with tape over her mouth and the caption “every woman who creates with her art and deserves respect. Let’s stand with artists, not against them. No injustice.”

Papist, insisting on her Instagram story that she was uninterested in claiming asylum abroad, said she made her sentence public in support of Iranian singer Parastoo Ahmadi. Ahmadi and eight members of her production and music team were ordered last month to be lashed 74 times by the Qom Provincial Criminal Court over allegations she offended “public decency through the production and publication of obscene and immoral content on cyberspace platforms.”

Papist made known on Instagram that she had made her own punishment public in order to express solidarity with another singer, Parastoo Ahmadi, who along with eight members of her production and music team had been previously sentenced to 74 lashes, the same sentence as that inflicted on Papist.

Papist’s song contained not Islamic but “nationalist” content, presumably celebrating the pre-Islamic and non-Islamic aspects of Iranian life and history.

The harder the regime’s crackdown, the greater the rage that 85% of the Iranian public that wants the regime to end feels. Its enforcers can flog all they want — 74 lashes of the whip can do serious, even permanent damage to the spine — but it’s clear from Papist’s support posted on Telegram for Ahmadi, another singer whose content was judged “obscene” and whose hair was, like Papist’s, not held in place by a hijab, that she remains defiant. The girls of Iran are no longer frightened of the supreme leader and his savage retinue in Tehran.

The regime is running out of ballistic missiles and drones, thanks in part to Trump’s renewal of hostilities which has led Tehran to strike at all of its Arab neighbors, using up many of those drones and missiles. And the American military is now bombing Iran’s ballistic missile plants and drone factories. The IDF has said it is ready — even, one suspects, eager — to launch massive attacks on Iran if any Israeli sites are damaged or soldiers are harmed. The turbaned troglodytes in Tehran are now running on sermons and soda water.

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