Iranian singer gives online concert without hijab

An Iranian singer was hailed as a hero by supporters on Thursday but faced prosecution after giving an online concert not wearing the hijab in defiance of the Islamic dress code.

Parastoo Ahmadi streamed the concert on her YouTube channel late Wednesday. She wore no headscarf and was bare-shouldered in a long, flowing black dress.

The concert was shot inside Iran at an undisclosed location without an audience. Ahmadi and her four-man backing band, which includes keyboard, percussion, and guitar players, played outside on a stage on the grounds of a traditional caravanserai complex.

Under rules imposed after the 1979 Islamic revolution, women must cover their hair in public and are not allowed to sing alone.

Ahmadi has built a wide following among Iranians for songs posted on her Instagram page, including audio clips and videos of ballads sung indoors without a headscarf in support of the 2022-2023 mass protests against the authorities.

The protests were sparked by the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini after her arrest in Tehran for an alleged breach of the Islamic Republic's strict dress code for women.

Wednesday's video stream appears to be the first time Ahmadi has recorded a full concert outside, unlike the more intimate recitals filmed indoors.

A written message on the YouTube video before the concert starts says: "I am Parastoo, the girl who cannot remain silent and refuses to stop singing for the country she loves."

She tells viewers to "listen to my voice in this imaginary concert and dream of a free and beautiful nation."

In one of the songs, she sings in an apparent reference to deadly crackdowns in 2022-2023 and on other protests in Iran: "From the blood of the youth of the homeland, tulips have grown."

Social media users praised the almost half-hour video's striking quality, streamed live from an unspecified location.

Parastoo AhmadiInstagram

'Shook a nation'

Without naming Ahmadi, the Mizan Online news website of the Iranian judiciary said Thursday that "a group led by a female singer" had performed "music without observing legal and religious standards."

The judiciary has "intervened and taken appropriate action, with a legal case filed against the singer and the production staff," it added.

US-based dissident campaigner Masih Alinejad hailed the concert as "historic", saying on social media that "her voice is a weapon against tyranny, her courage a song of defiance".

Prominent commentator Karim Sadjadpour, a fellow with the US-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, described the concert as an "act of extraordinary courage" that marked "another crack in the foundations of Iran's rotting theocracy."

"Parastoo Ahmadi shook an entire nation," said the France-based Iranian women's rights collective Association Femme Azadi.

"Iranian women are the greatest resistance fighters of our time."

The concert was streamed ahead of a new law expected to come into force on Friday. Rights groups have warned that it will drastically increase the penalties for women deemed to have flouted the dress code.

Amnesty International said in a report Tuesday that women could even face the death penalty if convicted under the "Promotion of the Culture of Chastity and Hijab" law.

"This shameful law intensifies the persecution of women and girls for daring to stand up for their rights," said Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty's deputy director for the Middle East and North Africa.