A well-liked Iranian musician who was arrested two years in the past throughout a crackdown on artists and teachers has been punished with 74 lashes in what activists mentioned on Thursday was a bid to humiliate him for supporting a nationwide rebellion.
The musician, Mehdi Yarrahi, 43, was subjected to the flogging by officers of the Morality Safety Prosecutor’s Workplace in Tehran on Wednesday, his lawyer Zahra Minuei mentioned on social media. The punishment, which Iran’s Revolutionary Court docket had sentenced him to, introduced an finish to a yearslong legal case.
“He who is just not keen to pay the value for freedom doesn’t deserve freedom,” Mr. Yarrahi mentioned in a publish on his official X account on Wednesday. He thanked his authorized staff and mentioned, “Wishing for liberation.”
Mostafa Nili, one other lawyer representing Mr. Yarrahi, mentioned on Thursday that his shopper was unable to take a seat or lean on his again as a result of of the punishment. The United Nations’ Worldwide Invoice of Human Rights strictly prohibits flogging, calling it inhumane and degrading.
The acute punishment comes as Iran’s artist neighborhood celebrates two Iranian administrators who on Sunday received an Oscar for an animated quick that had been nominated by Iran. On social media, some Iranians identified in outrage that whereas outdoors the nation Iranian artists have been being honored with accolades, inside they confronted abusive therapy by the federal government.
Mr. Yarrahi was arrested in a wave of detentions that aimed to quell any protests marking the anniversary of a 2022 rebellion in which protests led by younger individuals, significantly ladies, rocked Iran’s religiously conservative institution.
These 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 nationwide rebellion, with protesters demanding the top of the Islamic cleric’s rule. They ended with brutal crackdowns that resulted in the killing of greater than 500 individuals, the arrest of tens of hundreds extra and the executions of a number of protesters.
Mr. Yarrahi was one of many 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 track praising Iranian ladies who rejected the hijab rule and uncovered their hair as an act of civil disobedience.
“Take off your scarf, let your hair circulate,” he sang in a video that featured a girl dancing, her uncovered hair swaying.
Mr. Yarrahi, who made his music in secret and launched it solely on-line to keep away from censorship, confronted instantaneous punishment. The police rounded him up together with dozens of college students, teachers, journalists and artists.
On the time, the judiciary mentioned Mr. Yarrahi had launched an “unlawful track” that defied the “morals and norms of an Islamic society.”
Iran’s state information media reported that through the raid on Mr. Yarrahi’s residence, the safety forces had discovered alcohol, violating a regulation that bans the consumption and possession of alcohol.
He was initially sentenced to 2 years and eight months in jail, the singer mentioned in a video printed on social media final week. However his sentence was commuted to at least one 12 months as he skilled “poor bodily well being,” he mentioned, and was then later commuted to deal with arrest with 74 lashes.
For that 12 months, Mr. Yarrahi was confined to his residence and wore an digital ankle cuff, he mentioned. “I’ve spent that one 12 months, and it’s completed now,” he added.
Now free, Mr. Yarrahi has vowed to not return to the stage, as an act of solidarity with Iranian ladies.
“In any case these years of being banned from work, I perceive higher the struggling of the Iranian ladies,” he mentioned in the video.
Mr. Nili mentioned on social media on Thursday that he “was behind the door and will hear the sound of the lashes.”
“I might hear him shouting, ‘Thanks, God!’ after every lash,” Mr. Nili mentioned.
Iran’s artist neighborhood and a few well-known musicians, inside and out of doors the nation, have rallied behind Mr. Yarrahi, sharing his image on social media and praising him as a hero of the individuals.
Within the wake of the unrest, many Iranian musicians and artists endured persistent harassment from the safety police or have been barred from performing, mentioned Mehdi Kouhian, a lawyer who’s a member of the Committee for Advocacy for Prosecuted Artists, which was shaped through the antigovernment demonstrations.
Others fled the nation, the targets of authorities forces and hard-line teams, he added.
The lashes given to Mr. Yarrahi have been an effort to humiliate the musician “amongst his followers or non secular strata of Iranian society,” Mr. Kouhian mentioned.
At the very least 12 of the protesters who have been arrested through the crackdown have been sentenced to loss of life or to prolonged jail phrases, based on Amnesty Worldwide.
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