A popular Iranian musician who was arrested two years ago during a crackdown on artists and academics has been punished with 74 lashes in what activists said on Thursday was a bid to humiliate him for supporting a nationwide uprising.
The musician, Mehdi Yarrahi, 43, was subjected to the flogging by officers of the Morality Security Prosecutor’s Office in Tehran on Wednesday, his lawyer Zahra Minuei said on social media. The punishment, which Iran’s Revolutionary Court had sentenced him to, brought an end to a yearslong criminal case.
“He who is not willing to pay the price for freedom does not deserve freedom,” Mr. Yarrahi said in a post on his official X account on Wednesday. He thanked his legal team and said, “Wishing for liberation.”
Mostafa Nili, another lawyer representing Mr. Yarrahi, said on Thursday that his client was unable to sit or lean on his back because of the punishment. The United Nations’ International Bill of Human Rights strictly prohibits flogging, calling it inhumane and degrading.
The extreme punishment comes as Iran’s artist community celebrates two Iranian directors who on Sunday won an Oscar for an animated short that had been nominated by Iran. On social media, some Iranians pointed out in outrage that while outside the country Iranian artists were being honored with accolades, inside they faced abusive treatment by the government.
Mr. Yarrahi was arrested in a wave of detentions that aimed to quell any protests marking the anniversary of a 2022 uprising in which protests led by young people, particularly women, rocked Iran’s religiously conservative establishment.
Those protests erupted after 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died in police custody after being arrested on accusations of violating Iran’s mandatory hijab rule. The 2022 demonstrations swelled to nearly six months of nationwide uprising, with protesters demanding the end of the Islamic cleric’s rule. They ended with brutal crackdowns that resulted in the killing of more than 500 people, the arrest of tens of thousands more and the executions of several protesters.
Mr. Yarrahi was one of many artists who added their voices to the women-led uprising. In the months before the first anniversary of the protests, he released “Roosarito,” a song praising Iranian women who rejected the hijab rule and exposed their hair as an act of civil disobedience.
“Take off your scarf, let your hair flow,” he sang in a video that featured a woman dancing, her uncovered hair swaying.
Mr. Yarrahi, who made his music in secret and released it only online to avoid censorship, faced instant punishment. The police rounded him up along with dozens of students, academics, journalists and artists.
At the time, the judiciary said Mr. Yarrahi had released an “illegal song” that defied the “morals and norms of an Islamic society.”
Iran’s state news media reported that during the raid on Mr. Yarrahi’s home, the security forces had found alcohol, violating a law that bans the consumption and possession of alcohol.
He was initially sentenced to two years and eight months in prison, the singer said in a video published on social media last week. But his sentence was commuted to one year as he experienced “poor physical health,” he said, and was then later commuted to house arrest with 74 lashes.
For that year, Mr. Yarrahi was confined to his home and wore an electronic ankle cuff, he said. “I have spent that one year, and it is finished now,” he added.
Now free, Mr. Yarrahi has vowed not to return to the stage, as an act of solidarity with Iranian women.
“After all these years of being banned from work, I understand better the suffering of the Iranian women,” he said in the video.
Mr. Nili said on social media on Thursday that he “was behind the door and could hear the sound of the lashes.”
“I could hear him shouting, ‘Thank you, God!’ after each lash,” Mr. Nili said.
Iran’s artist community and some famous musicians, inside and outside the country, have rallied behind Mr. Yarrahi, sharing his picture on social media and praising him as a hero of the people.
In the wake of the unrest, many Iranian musicians and artists endured persistent harassment from the security police or were barred from performing, said Mehdi Kouhian, a lawyer who is a member of the Committee for Advocacy for Prosecuted Artists, which was formed during the antigovernment demonstrations.
Others fled the country, the targets of government forces and hard-line groups, he added.
The lashes given to Mr. Yarrahi were an effort to humiliate the musician “among his fans or religious strata of Iranian society,” Mr. Kouhian said.
At least 12 of the protesters who were arrested during the crackdown have been sentenced to death or to lengthy prison terms, according to Amnesty International.
