She sang without a scarf on her head - and for that she was sentenced to 74 lashes. The Iranian singer Parastoo Ahmadi, 29, also received a two-year travel ban and a two-year performance ban, along with eight members of her production team, convicted of "creating and publishing vulgar and immoral content" online.

Her "offense": in December 2024, at a concert streamed live through her YouTube channel, she performed the patriotic song "From the Blood of the Youth of the Homeland" - without a hijab. The video went viral, she was soon detained and released, and then proceedings were launched on the basis of the published footage.

Human rights lawyers point out that the verdict has no legal basis - singing, making music and creating musical works by women are not criminal offenses under Iranian law. "The sentence of 74 lashes shows that the human rights situation in Iran has not improved," said a representative of a human rights center. Fellow actresses voiced their support, describing her performance as an awakening of the "spirit of resistance."

It is easy to read this as a distant story from another world. But the essence is universal: a woman punished for singing the way she wanted, with her voice as her only weapon. History knows that regimes that fear a woman's song always fear something much bigger - and that such fear rarely ends well for those who create it.