An Iranian court rejected Parastoo Ahmadi’s appeal against her sentence of 74 lashes and a two-year ban on all artistic activities last week, Iranian media reported, just days before it was announced that the Islamic Republic was seeking to take action against other entertainers over conduct related to their creative work.
The court upheld the Qom Provincial Criminal Court’s conviction of Ahmadi, musicians Ehsan Beiraqdar and Soheil Faqih Nasiri, and six members of the production team, finding that her hijabless performance had violated “public decency through the production and publication of obscene and immoral content on cyberspace platforms.”
Ahmadi was arrested after her performance was broadcast on YouTube last December.
Article 638 of the Islamic Penal Code criminalizes the performance of any “open religious taboo” or acts that offend public decency, such as appearing without a hijab. Article 743 criminalizes the promotion or encouragement of corruption, prostitution, or acts deemed offensive to public morality via digital networks.
The Islamic Republic also opened a criminal case against a production company after two actors, playing siblings in a drama titled Tehran Paris Tehran, embraced on stage. The minor physical contact between actress Fatemeh Masoudifar and Mehrdad Sedighian was recorded by a spectator.
The Iranian judiciary’s Mizan news agency reported that the regime’s prosecutors acted over behavior that violated social norms and standards of propriety, while the IRGC-affiliated Fars News Agency complained that the scene was symptomatic of societal erosion and that there was no proper “supervision” over theaters.
The theatre company has alleged that the camera angle is misleading, according to Iran International, and the actors never made physical contact.
Only a week before the incident, the regime also threatened legal action against women who ran in Tehran’s Velayat Park race after footage emerged of women running in clothing that did not meet the Islamic Republic’s strict modesty requirements.
Though the footage was circulated online by individuals supporting Tehran, who used it to dismiss reports on the compulsory hijab and abuse of women in Iran, authorities have threatened the organizers of the race with legal action and penalties.
Sports Director Habib Sotoudeh-Nejad told Tasnim that participants had pledged compliance with “Islamic standards” before the race, and efforts had been made to ensure that those not complying were removed from the event.
Nejad alleged that security personnel were stationed along the route to warn participants about their clothing and remove those who did not meet Islamic standards of modesty.