HRANA – Parastoo Ahmadi, a singer, along with eight members of the production team and musicians involved in the “Caravanserai Concert,” has been sentenced by the Criminal Court of Qom Province to 74 lashes, a two-year travel ban, and a two-year prohibition on artistic activities.
According to HRANA, citing BBC Persian, Parastoo Ahmadi and eight members of the production team and musicians of the “Caravanserai Concert” have been sentenced to flogging and other penalties.
According to the report, Parastoo Ahmadi, together with eight members of the concert’s production team and musicians, was sentenced by the Criminal Court of Qom Province to 74 discretionary lashes, a two-year ban on leaving the country, and a two-year ban on engaging in artistic activities.
The charges against the defendants reportedly included “offending public decency through the production and publication of vulgar and immoral content on cyberspace platforms.”
In December 2024, Parastoo Ahmadi and several of her musicians held a symbolic concert without an audience at the Deir Gachin Caravanserai in Qom. The performance was livestreamed on Ahmadi’s YouTube channel. The publication of the video subsequently led to the opening of a judicial case against them.
Shortly afterward, Ms. Ahmadi, pianist Ehsan Beiraqdar, and electric guitarist Soheil Faqih-Nasiri were arrested. In a report published by Tasnim News Agency, quoting the head of the Information Center of the Mazandaran Province Police Command, authorities stated that “following the production and publication of a video by Ms. Parastoo Ahmadi that was deemed contrary to social norms and values, she was summoned to the Public Security Police and instructed to appear before the judicial authorities.”
On the evening of December 15, 2024, the two male musicians were released under judicial supervision orders. Parastoo Ahmadi was also released from detention at approximately 3:00 a.m. the following day under similar conditions.
On December 23, 2024, the defendants were formally charged at Branch 38 of the Tehran Prosecutor’s Office for Moral Security Affairs. At the conclusion of the session, which was attended by their defense attorneys, all were released on bail.
Parastoo Ahmadi, born in 1997 in Nowshahr, is a singer and a graduate of film directing from Soore University. She previously gained prominence during the 2022 nationwide protests through her rendition of the patriotic song “Az Khoon-e Javanan-e Vatan” (“From the Blood of the Youth of the Homeland”) by Aref Qazvini. Her body of work also includes reinterpretations of Mazandarani folk songs and poems by Baba Taher and Mehdi Akhavan Sales.