Crime and Punishment Iranian Style

Iranian singer-songwriter Shervin Hajipour soared to global acclaim with his Grammy Award-winning single “Baraye” (For the Sake of), which effectively served as the anthem of the 2022 protests in Iran. However, his artistic journey took a perilous turn when he was arrested in September 2022 on charges of acting against national security.

On March 1, the Revolutionary Tribunal delivered a verdict that to most commentators seemed more like a satirical composition: “A two-year prohibition on leaving Iran; an assignment to delve into the cultural, scientific, and artistic achievements of the Islamic Revolution and to disseminate these findings online; reading and summarizing Morteza Mottahari’s book ‘Women’s Rights in Islam’ and His Holiness Ayatollah Abdollah Javadi Amoli’s book ‘Women in the Mirror of Beauty and Dignity’ (each summary no less than 30 pages); composing a musical piece addressing the crimes of America against humanity and the violation of human rights by the American government in the course of the past century, disseminating the music online, and participating in a workshop on managing professional behavior in the arts.”

• March 2: Satirizing the verdict, Sadegh Zibakalam, a professor at Tehran University, wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter: “I wish the honorable judge would have guided Shervin: What genre of music should he choose when composing in order to best capture the crimes of the United States? Is it classical music? Jazz? The lighter genres played at vaudeville, pop, rap, or in the traditional systems of Persian music?”
• March 2: Centrist Fararu quoted the son and grandson of Morteza Mottahari, who declared their readiness to prepare the book summaries for Hajipour in protest against the sentence.
• March 3: Centrist Asr-e Iran, quoting an open letter to the judge by Ali Varamini, a member of Ham-Mihan newspaper’s editorial board, wrote: “I suggest you appoint Hajipour minister of culture … The kind of punishment you have in mind for him is exactly the sort of things our culture minister is doing!”
• March 5: Mohsen Azmoudeh, a columnist at reformist Etemad newspaper, satirized the sentence by quoting Amoli’s son and Mottahari’s grandson, who complained that the Revolutionary Tribunal considers reading the works of their father and grandfather a form of punishment.

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