Grammy-winning Iranian singer says he faces bans from public venues

Iranian singer and songwriter Shervin Hajipour said he is facing new restrictions, including being barred from entering a gym and attending concerts.

In an Instagram video story, he said that when he asked a club security guard why he was denied entry, the guard replied: “Because you are Shervin.”

Iran's clerical rulers have eased enforcement of Islamic veiling laws, paused a draconian new hijab law and looked the other way as once-banned outdoor concerts proliferate.

But crackdowns on dissidents and political speech have sharply mounted since the conflict, according to rights groups.

Hajipour is the creator of the protest song Baraye (“For…”), which became a global anthem for Iran’s nationwide Woman, Life, Freedom movement following the 2022 death of a young woman, Mahsa Amini, in morality police custody.

He was briefly arrested in September 2022 shortly after the song went viral.

In 2023, Hajipour won the inaugural Grammy Award for Best Song for Social Change for the son.

The next year, a court sentenced him to three years and eight months in prison on charges including propaganda against the Islamic Republic and inciting and encouraging people to commit acts of violence and disturbance with the intention of harming national security.

He was also banned from leaving the country for two years.

The court ordered him to produce monthly one-page works on “the crimes of America against humanity” and compose a musical piece about “America’s crimes and its violations of human rights,” according to a copy of the verdict he shared in an Instagram post.

It also directed him to summarize books by Morteza Motahhari, a leading ideologue of the Islamic Republic whose writings on women morality and politics remain central to state doctrine, and to compile cultural and scientific “achievements of the Islamic Republic” and present them in digital form.