Iranian court changes pop singer’s jail time to home confinement

An Iranian court has changed the sentence of a pop singer who criticized mandatory headscarves for women to home confinement rather than jail due to health concerns, her lawyer said.

Mehdi Yarrahi, 42, was arrested in August for releasing an “illegal song” that challenged “the morals and customs of Islamic society”. He was released on bail in October.

In January, the court sentenced Yarahi to “a total of two years and eight months’ imprisonment” on multiple charges.

Under Iranian law, the prison terms run concurrently, meaning he will only have to serve one year, which will now be converted to home confinement.

“Due to my client’s condition requiring medical treatment, the one year sentence was commuted to an electronic tag [bound with a movement radius of 1,000 meters],” lawyer Zahra Minouei said on X (formerly Twitter) on Sunday evening.

It’s unclear what disease Arash has.

She said Yarahi had been under electronic surveillance since February 20 and the court order included a bail of 15 billion tomans (about $270,000).

The singer released the song “Roosarito,” which means “your hijab” in Farsi, shortly before the anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s death.

On September 16, 2022, Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd, was arrested on suspicion of violating Iran’s law forcing women to wear headscarves and died in police custody on September 16, 2022.

Protests that erupted across Iran following Amini’s death resulted in the deaths of hundreds of people, including dozens of security personnel, and nine men were executed for protest-related “crimes.”

Thousands of protesters were also arrested, accused by authorities of taking part in Western-instigated “riots.”

In the three-minute video released for “Roosarito,” Yarahi expressed support for a woman’s right to choose whether to wear a headscarf or not, dedicating the song to the “brave Iranian women” involved in the protest movement.

Yarrahi won the award for Best Pop Vocalist at the Fajr Festival, Iran’s most important government-organized music event.

His song “Soroode Zan (Hymn to Women)” released in October 2022 became a protest song, especially on college campuses.

Yarahi has repeatedly criticized the authorities during his concerts, particularly for discriminatory practices in his ethnically diverse southwestern home province of Khuzestan.