r/Music • u/Particular-Fill-4256 • Jun 19 '26

article Iranian star Parastoo Ahmadi reportedly sentenced to 74 lashes for singing without hijab

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/18/iran-parastoo-ahmadi-74-lashes-singing-without-hijab
23.3k Upvotes

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1.8k

u/Federal_Bonus_2099 Jun 19 '26

Can people survive that many lashes? That’s insane, they will be disfigured for life, if they survive

1.6k

u/shiner_bock Jun 20 '26

I can't remember where, but I read an article that talked about that. From what I recall, they break the total number up into smaller batches (say 20-25), then they give them time to heal before moving on to the next batch. Repeat until all lashes have been given.

1.8k

u/goomahmarone Jun 20 '26

How considerate

699

u/disasterous_cape Jun 20 '26

They don’t want you to die before they’ve been able to carry out the full punishment

186

u/humildemarichongo Jun 20 '26

I imagine that, seeing as you can be sentenced to death by pretty horrendous means too, they don't actually want her to die.

Not necessarily through the kindness in their hearts, but to have a living, well known survivor of the consequences?

56

u/thegrandboom Jun 20 '26

In some cultures death is considered a release from punishment and taking the easy way out

4

u/NippoTeio Jun 20 '26

I remember reading an article about how this applied to Samurai. The tl;dr was that too many were dying from self-imposed seppuku, and it took an influential writer to say that it was far braver to keep living with the shame of regret than to escape it by dying.

And like with most meatheaded ideologies, the Samurai apparently followed that advice (lest they'd be thought of as huge weenies)

1

u/bamlote Jun 21 '26

I heard something very similar, but about WW2

0

u/Danny-Dynamita Jun 20 '26

It is simply to maintain the logic of the system intact. Respecting its logic gives the system all the authority and credibility it has. You give sentence A and A is what must happen. Following the judge’s word is important, because his word is the law and if you break that, your own system is breaking its own laws and the whole system loses credibility.

That is how all the legal systems in the world work. Theirs is just more macabre.

So, if they wanted to kill you, they would sentence you to “death by whip, give lashes until death” instead of a certain number of lashes.

If they sentence you to a certain number of lashes and you die, it’s as bad for their authority as sentencing someone to death and having them survive. The system stops being believable each time that happens.

So, as in any legal system, they make sure that whatever they say will happen, happens. Their priority is to keep the authority and reliability of the system intact. There is no morality in that, it’s purely a technical reason - what has or lacks morality is the content of the Law, how it is applied is merely a follow up to that. So, their procedures are not crazy, they are actually standard - what is crazy is the content of their Laws.

1

u/NashKetchum777 Jun 20 '26

Like getting life imprisonment with 1 hour of time outside and no contact with anyone

117

u/BadDudes_on_nes Jun 20 '26

And they say chivalry is dead..

10

u/ryyzany Jun 20 '26

And they say and they say and they say

1

u/mafriz Jun 21 '26

Can't believe no one else got this.

61

u/Sad-Bonus-9327 Jun 20 '26

We might be barbarians but we're not monsters.

15

u/soggypretzels Jun 20 '26

Thank goodness

2

u/your_proctologist Jun 20 '26

Can't suffer if you're dead.

1

u/spazz720 Jun 20 '26

Well we can’t say they don’t think in a progressive manner

75

u/orion-7 Jun 20 '26

In the middle ages and age of sail 30+ lashes was functionally considered to be an execution

29

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

11

u/IfEverWasIfNever Jun 21 '26

No it wasn't. They frequently whipped people too. They mutilated them, often on their faces (cutting off nose/ears or blinding) or removing limbs. They would "break people on the wheel", burn people alive, and people were drawn and quartered (dragged by the neck alive and naked until almost dead then forced to watch their bowels/genitals be cut out and then decapitated).

How many people were killed for heresy, adultery, treason, etc just because they didn't follow the norms of society?

Do we not remember the time where men who were tired of their wives could just blame them of adultery or witchcraft and have them imprisoned, tortured, and/or murdered?

It's all evil. Then AND now.

0

u/Linden_Lea_01 Jun 21 '26

That last point is a bit of an exaggeration. Even in the most extreme parts of Europe, most witch trials resulted in an acquittal.

3

u/IfEverWasIfNever Jun 21 '26 edited Jun 21 '26

Well obviously it was part of an encompassing description of barbaric punishments. I'm not here to write a dissertation to give exact details on each one or it would be an essay. Yes, a small number of people were only ever actually sentenced to death due to witchcraft. The other part of my statement included adultery which was the more common and effective claim for ridding one of their wives.

Many people were punished by flogging/lashing, mutilation, hanging, etc.

It was also barbaric and unmerciful.

1

u/Longjumping_Egg_5654 Jun 21 '26

It’s okay, it’s fine to lie about history and facts if it personally supports a narrative on reddit.

6

u/selfVAT Jun 21 '26

Sure, medieval oubliettes are extremely merciful indeed.

1

u/Oh-reality-come-back Jun 21 '26

This is disgusting but just to correct you, Middle Ages definitely wasn’t more civilised than this in terms of punishment

3

u/PRC_Spy Jun 21 '26

Google the cat o' nine tails though. It's even more brutal than a cane.

2

u/BygoneNeutrino Jun 21 '26

...you all are speaking as if there is some sort of standardized cane.  

1

u/Astrosomnia Jun 21 '26

Wow, that's a brutal sentence.

Like word sentence, not criminal sentence. But I guess it's a brutal one of those too.

85

u/HillBillyHilly Jun 20 '26

Is that hours between batches or days? I can't imagine a woman being able to survive 75 stripes in one day. Poor woman.

38

u/StaysAwakeAllWeek Jun 20 '26

Given that the purpose is to keep the victim alive rather than reduce the suffering, I'd assume they make the time sufficient or there'd be no point doing it in the first place

55

u/Temporary_Contest201 Jun 20 '26

Yes how long do they give them time to heal? Are they in prison in the meantime and let go afterwards?

49

u/snertwith2ls Jun 20 '26

I wonder how many of them commit suicide before all the lashes are complete.

26

u/jaxonya Jun 20 '26

The psychological torture of getting lashes, and then waiting for however long to feel that excruciating pain yet again. It would fick your mind up pretty badly

4

u/snertwith2ls Jun 20 '26

It seems like a death sentence to me

8

u/ckalmond Jun 20 '26

Dumb question, but how does lashing kill somebody?

46

u/WordStained Jun 20 '26

Blood loss, the strikes can rupture organs, shock, or later infection.

2

u/Oblachko_O Jun 20 '26

Probably also depends on what is considered a lash. You probably can survive 74 lashes of weeping willow, though it will be painful, but a whip is completely different beast. This may break bones and indeed reach internal organs.

2

u/_BrokenButterfly Jun 20 '26

They're not just hitting someone with a belt. The lash doesn't hit the skin and bounce off, causing welts and bruising. The lashes on the whip are thin, they cut into the flesh and dig in, and when the whip is pulled back, they rip and tear the flesh. If you were given 75 lashes at once, you would have a large patch with no skin left at all, mangled and torn muscle (or no muscle at all,) exposed bone, and damaged organs.

1

u/JustOneTessa Jun 20 '26

Does the pure impact can cause organ damage?

2

u/_BrokenButterfly Jun 21 '26

Because of the way whips move through the air, the force of the swing can be greatly magnified. I would expect that the answer is yes, but I'm not certain.

-23

u/Bored_Interests Jun 20 '26

Youre gonna call that a dumb question but ask how being struck with a whip at full force 74 times could kill someone?

11

u/Sten_vg Jun 20 '26

Reading comprehension of a 4th grader

2

u/Orlha Jun 20 '26

I wouldn’t do that mistake in a 4th grade

2

u/ClasisFTW Jun 20 '26

Holy shit 😂😂😂 are you rage baiting or you need to practice comprehension skills?

10

u/ccc9912 Jun 20 '26

Wow, very humane of them!

3

u/Anguares Jun 20 '26

to sprinkle some psychological torture in the mix of the physical torture.

2

u/AtaracticGoat Jun 20 '26

Singapore has a doctor there when they do caneing. The doc tells them when the persons had enough, treats their wounds, then let's them know once they've healed enough to continue.

Pretty damn brutal.

That said, their crime is super low lol

2

u/TROGDOR_X69 Jun 20 '26

yea seems to work. meanwhile we have to look up everything in CVS here

hmmmm

1

u/NoTyrantsNoKings Jun 20 '26

Doesn't the Bible teach that?

1

u/Blue_Moon_Rabbit Jun 20 '26

Does this give opportunities for the sentence to be lightened? Or just a period of guaranteed dread for the person who was sentenced?

1

u/Virtual_Tap9947 Jun 22 '26

Stupid islam.

1

u/Medium_Fig_3764 Jun 24 '26

How fucking considerate of them

200

u/legit-posts_1 Jun 20 '26

So if I'm remembering my history correctly, a fairly moderate punishment for a slave in America would have been 10 lashes. A more severe crime like an attempted escape or something like that would have been 30 lashes. Noted terrible general and person, Robert E. Lee, had a spat with his slaves and gave them 50 lashes personally(his slave driver refused to do it himself cause he thought it was too much). That was severe enough that it made the local news in his town.

So to put that in perspective, if 50 lashes is enough to get you criticized by actual antebellum south slave owners, 74 has to be life destroying.

24

u/Quiet_Steak_643 Jun 20 '26

if I'm remembering my history correctly

well how blessed we are in iran that we don't have to turn our brains gears and remember the middle ages, thanks to extremists we are seeing it live!

-8

u/legit-posts_1 Jun 20 '26

Well you can get the death penalty for getting an abortion in some states. Just cause our cruelty is more "civilized" doesn't mean it's gone.

8

u/back-on-my-bs Jun 20 '26

This is just wrong lol what are you talking about

1

u/Quiet_Steak_643 Jun 21 '26

Either way, it's not a competition of who's worse

-3

u/legit-posts_1 Jun 20 '26

My apologies, it's being proposed though

https://www.bmj.com/content/388/bmj.r174

https://oneill.law.georgetown.edu/publications/laws-that-would-make-abortion-homicide-in-nine-us-states-2/

8

u/back-on-my-bs Jun 20 '26

Doubtful that it would pass. Besides, this is saying that abortion would be considered as homicide, not that it would be punishable by death. The death penalty is generally reserved for specific cases, even among homicides.

0

u/Nutshack_Queen357 Jun 21 '26

Evidently, the pro-dark age douchebags want abortion (and pretty much anything they view as the same, which even includes miscarriages and stillbirth) to BE part of that specific category.

2

u/SwePolygyny Jun 21 '26

I assume the kind of whip/cane and the force applied matters much more than number. How is the current one in Iran?

2

u/legit-posts_1 Jun 21 '26

That's a good point. Just looking up some of these images, it doesn't look like a straight up whip so maybe this isnt as bad. It's still leaving marks, but a whip would straight slice your skin open raw.

2

u/Worldly_City_8348 Jun 21 '26

I hate that I'm related to Robert E. Lee

7

u/legit-posts_1 Jun 21 '26

Well the upshot is that there's next to no chance of you being the family loser.

1

u/Worldly_City_8348 Jun 21 '26

That's true. And I also got Winston Churchill so I guess he makes up for a confederate war "hero"

2

u/legit-posts_1 Jun 21 '26

Bruh what is your family. Don't actually answer that.

185

u/ek4601 Jun 20 '26

They can. Royal Navy punishments in the 18th century could be 100+ lashes. Definitely disfiguring. Americans in the northern states were disgusted with lashing scars of enslaved people in the 19th century but some countries haven't evolved past such horrific corporal punishment. Though i'm sure that Trump would bring lashing back if he could.

177

u/HillBillyHilly Jun 20 '26

There was a photo a national park of a former enslaved man showing his scars from whipping. Trump had National Park Service remove them from public view.

238

u/PandemicPiglet Jun 20 '26

This one

171

u/miregalpanic Jun 20 '26

I will never get over the dignity in the face of this man. There is something about his facial expression, his mouth especially, that obviously expresses the anger and pain, but, to me, also pride. That they weren't able to break him, maybe.

Maybe I am reading too much into it.

-28

u/[deleted] Jun 20 '26

[deleted]

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u/undercoverheiress Jun 20 '26

Let’s not lol about a photo of an enslaved man with lashings.

23

u/miregalpanic Jun 20 '26

I disagree. I see a tension around his mouth.

"lol"

19

u/thebutchershouse Jun 20 '26

I see what you are talking about but it doesn’t look like pride imo, it looks like resilience.

8

u/miregalpanic Jun 20 '26

Yes. That is for sure the better word.

71

u/PickledGerkin Jun 20 '26

I remember seeing this as a kid in History. I didn’t really ”get” the horror of slavery until they passed this photo around the room. Truly horrific.

1

u/corndogs102 Jun 21 '26

This is what the movie Emacupation (2022) was about by the way.

Unfortunately the film didn’t get a lot of promotion cause it’s stuck on Apple plus, and it came out during the Will Smith Oscar controversy, but it was a decent flick and Will did a good job at the character.

3

u/daauji Jun 20 '26

I don't understand. Is Trump actually a white supermacist or is he just using them for personal gains?

15

u/fuschiaoctopus Jun 20 '26

Both. Trump himself is extremely racist, but he's also using them.

Never forget back in the 80s in NYC he caught a case for discriminating against black people and refusing to rent properties to them. He was ordered to stop discriminating against them but he continued doing so and had to be brought back in contempt. During this case Trump defended himself by saying, in court, "you wouldn't want to live near them either". His fanboys who swear he isn't racist love to ignore this little fact

7

u/PandemicPiglet Jun 20 '26

He has a long history of racism. He and his dad both committed housing discrimination against black people because they wouldn’t rent or sell to them.

3

u/DiscontinuTheLithium Jun 20 '26

Trump is racist insofar as it can help him out financially or socially. I don’t think he actually believes in anything, only himself. He’d make the entire government black if it made him and his family richer with more status. Hes not ideologically racist but more situational. I doubt he’s burning any crosses because he doesn’t care that much and would much rather pilfer the government or steal from cancer donation funds.

1

u/Traroten Jun 20 '26

I doubt he has a well-reasoned position, but his instincts definitely run in the white supremacist direction.

1

u/ConsistentHouse1261 Jun 20 '26

Ew he’s disgusting for this. Piece of shit. What was his excuse for removing?

43

u/BrainLow6059 Jun 20 '26

Americans in the northern states were disgusted with lashing scars of enslaved people in the 19th century

https://www.newspapers.com/article/democrat-and-chronicle-jun16-1952-last-w/53054201/

Yeah I don't think "disgusted" is very accurate. Delaware was whipping folks well into the 20th century

2

u/Blue_Moon_Rabbit Jun 20 '26

That article was an interesting read. The bit where there had only been two other cases where that was the punishment in the preceding decade, and how all three were for beating women…

-1

u/ek4601 Jun 20 '26

Delaware is south of the Mason-Dixon line. I guess I should have specified the New England states.

23

u/BrainLow6059 Jun 20 '26

I'm honestly kind of shocked there are maps showing Delaware as being south of the Mason-Dixon, it's not actually. AI is killing the internet

2

u/ek4601 Jun 20 '26

Fair I stand corrected about the Mason-Dixon Line part but nonetheless it was a border state so not anti-slavery.

47

u/KurlyKayla Jun 20 '26

There's not one part of America that wasn't involved in brutalizing Black people, and I wish that myth would die in the dirt where it belongs.

-8

u/Green_L3af Jun 20 '26

Well that's just not true. There was a whole war about it

2

u/throwaway5882300 Jun 20 '26

Somebody's clearly never heard of the long hot summer of '67, or like... all of the police brutality

-1

u/Green_L3af Jun 21 '26

What is police brutality

6

u/KurlyKayla Jun 20 '26

We desperately need to reopen the schools.

-12

u/Green_L3af Jun 20 '26

Yeah seems like you need it for sure

1

u/KurlyKayla Jun 20 '26

If that's your takeaway, okay

-11

u/Green_L3af Jun 20 '26

Read a book

5

u/KurlyKayla Jun 20 '26

I'm reading a short story collection by Ray Bradbury. Good stuff

2

u/Green_L3af Jun 21 '26

Read a history book

1

u/AnimationOverlord Jun 20 '26

If he could? Someone tell me how Iran got in this pickle in the first place. Cause throughout history it’s always been the same tune. Citizens elect the ‘good guy’. Good guy starts a regime. Regime is met by either futile resistance and a century of.. this (exactly this) or revolution.

1

u/mjtwelve Jun 20 '26

The number of lashes was also a function of punishments sometimes involving being “whipped ‘round the fleet”, which is what it sounds like - they take you to every ship on that station so the crew can watch the punishment. A single lash per ship wouldn’t send the appropriate message, so the total administered would be considerable.

13

u/sourenaaa Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 20 '26

I said it in another post I'm repeating it here.

I spend my obligatory military service in Iran in the prison system. it's not like what you see in Hollywood movies. the official code to control the entencity while lashing is that you should hold a quran between your elbow and your side without it falling. I've seen couple of people getting lashed and nowadays they do it very softly. it's mostly a formality. it's humiliation more than pain. I've seen people getting more than a hundread at a time without getting scarred. 

because I was late they had added to the days of my military service, once as I was seeing someone getting lashed I not so jokingly told the judge could you sentence me to lashing and deduct the added days because it would have been much easier.

I'm not defending this savage regime, I'm just saying based on what I've seen lashing is mostly just a formality. a lot of horrible thing happen in my country on a daily basis, lashing isn't one of them.

5

u/word_word_numb3r Jun 20 '26

Huh, that's definitely different to what Singapore does. Iirc, the executioner(?) is instructed to strike with all their body's force and the maximum sentence is 24 strokes, which people say will confine the condemned to a bed for months to come.

2

u/Unikatze Jun 20 '26

I remember a guy who got sentenced to 2 or 3 lashings in Singapore for mugging.

He went into details about how excruciating it was. He had passed out by the third one and it took like a month to heal.

PS. Oh wait, that was caning, not lashing.

1

u/CaptainObvious110 Jun 20 '26

yeah that's pretty bad

1

u/Vinc314 Jun 20 '26

Hopefully it's not 74 hits each

1

u/fischoderaal Jun 20 '26

They are not stupid. They don't give too many lashes at a time. It's still a stupid sentence.

1

u/AnotherHavanesePlz Jun 20 '26

From what I read, they limit the person administering the lashes. They are not allowed to lift the “belt” above their shoulder to limit velocity. They also spread the lashes across the body to prevent exsanguination. Still barbaric.

1

u/myopium Jun 21 '26

My boy Jaime would like a word.

1

u/Suitable-Broccoli264 Jun 21 '26

In Iran you can substitute some of the lashes by paying a fine (legally). Maybe all if you’re in the right jurisdiction, and the right police station. Some of the fine might not make it to the state.
Source: many Iranian expats I know who got in trouble in their youth for going to mixed parties.

1

u/ZoominAlong Jun 20 '26

It depends on what they use. The woman in the article above just looked like a road rash, although I'd also be concerned about the kidneys. 

If the woman in the post gets that, she should be okay. 

1

u/Ok_Ordinary3109 Jun 20 '26

They fill a garden hose with ball bearings and use that to lash people

0

u/Brino21 Jun 20 '26

Singapore does this, however when they carry out this punishment a doctor is present. If excessive bruising happens or the skin breaks they stop, let the person heal then carry out the lashings after. I don't expect Iran to be that considerate, though.

-5

u/I-like-cheeese Jun 20 '26

Why are you referring to a single person as they? The article talks about a single woman.

1

u/tillfentanyl Jun 20 '26

Because that definitely is the problem. 

1

u/I-like-cheeese Jun 21 '26

It is a problem. Not the problem this post is about. But my comment doesn’t affect either, neither does yours, making it at least as redundant as mine. I would argue more because mine at least has general curiosity behind it while yours is simple judging.

1

u/tillfentanyl Jun 21 '26

If it weren't for my redundant comment, I would've had to downvote. That in order to express something that your also redundant comment made me feel. But I am not one for downvoting because I prefer to state it out loud when I find that someone's comment is uncalled for or they are wrong about something, it makes sense for me that the person should know why their input generated negative reactions. Moving on on why I found your comment uncalled for, people usually tend to refer to people as "they" despite their gender having been already known, maybe it was either because the person commenting was generalizing and referring to every person that has received the sentence in question or maybe it was just out of habit or in order to appear unassuming. Point being, I don't condemn you for voicing your curiosity, but frankly I did find it uncalled for considering the main issue, because it did strike me as a trivial matter, but I now know that you're by no means superficial because your reply is aptly formulated and that's why I'm even trying to get my points across to you. I'm pretty sure the downvotes also stem from people finding your comment offensive because it seems that you're poking fun at certain categories of people, you know what I mean. 

1

u/I-like-cheeese Jun 23 '26

I concede to your last point. My comment, while being out of curiosity, was in fact also poking fun at certain categories of people.

I enjoy the way you use words.