Iranian artists face worsening persecution

The Iranian film "My Favourite Cake" is a seemingly harmless tale of two elderly people finding intimacy and affection after the loss of their respective partners. But this month, directors Behtash Sanaeeha and Maryam Moghaddam, along with lead actress Lily Farhadpour and three other cast and crew members, are on trial in Tehran for the crimes of "offending public decency and morality," "propagating debauchery" and "propaganda against the Islamic Republic."

The film won the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury Competition and the FIPRESCI Prize at the Berlinale in February 2024, however the filmmakers were banned from traveling to the event and had their passports confiscated.

Apart from suggestions of sex in the film, it is assumed that Farhadpour's failure to wear a hijab during some scenes has landed the filmmakers in the Revolutionary Court. 

Crackdown following 2022 protests

Much has been written about the arbitrary crackdown on freedom of speech and artistic expression in the wake of the 2022 "Woman, Life, Freedom" protests sparked by the police killing of 22-year-old Jina Mahsa Amini, who was arrested for "improperly" wearing a hijab, or headscarf.

When internationally renowned rapper Toomaj Salehi released songs in support of the Amini solidarity protests, he was found guilty of "spreading propaganda against the regime," among other crimes.

In April 2023, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Court sentenced the musician to death. The penalty was overturned in June 2024 and Toomaj was released from prison in December. However, he was on trial again in February, facing new charges over a song, according to the Iran-based Human Rights Activists News Agency. 

In a video posted online, Salehi described how he was tortured during arrest, with repeated beatings resulting in fractures in his hands and leg. He added that he spent nearly nine months in solitary confinement.

Meanwhile, singer Mehdi Yarrahi was sentenced to nearly three years in prison in January 2024 after criticizing Iran's headscarf requirement for women, and recently received 74 lashes while under house arrest.   

Iranian artists regularly subjected to torture

Even before the post-2022 crackdown on artists who dare to express support for democracy and human rights, freedom of expression had long been brutally suppressed in Iran.

"My friends and I have experienced years of imprisonment for our art," Iranian composer Mehdi Rajabian told DW.

This included about three years in jail and three months of solitary confinement for Rajabian. One of his crimes was to produce albums that supported banned artists, including female vocalists who are forbidden from singing solo in Iran. He has since been prohibited from producing music within Iran — though he continues to collaborate online with artists globally.

Rajabian was first jailed for three months in 2013 on charges of blasphemy, propaganda against the regime and unauthorized artistic activities. In 2015, the composer was sentenced to six years in jail. He was released on parole after spending two years at Tehran's notorious Evin prison, having also carried out a 40-day hunger strike during which he suffered severe malnourishment.

Rajabian was arrested again in 2020 for working with female dancers and singers, and for publishing his latest album, "Middle Eastern," which brought together 100 artists from across the Middle East to promote peace in the region. He is currently serving a suspended sentence, and is banned from leaving Iran.

"Everything is on a knife's edge," he told DW in an email written from the Mazandaran province in northern Iran.

His music appeared in an advertisement for Mercedes Benz in January this year. He could be returned to prison for any activity that is disapproved of by the regime. 

In December 2024, Rajabian was arrested and detained along with Toomaj Salehi — days after the rapper was released from prison — but the composer was later released, a knowledgeable source told DW. 

The musician's brother, filmmaker Hossein Rajabian, concurrently served a two-and-a-half-year sentence in Evin prison for "propaganda against the state" and "insulting Islamic sanctities."

The director joined his brother on a hunger strike in the jail before he was released and left Iran for Paris, where he now lives. Both had been forced to make confessions, and also endured torture, including beatings and electric shocks, as documented by Amnesty International.

In 2024, at the Cannes Film Festival, Hossein Rajabian was featured as part the Woman Life Freedom Project on posters showing censored and persecuted Iranian artists, including Abdolreza Kahani, Keywan Karimi and Sepideh Farsi.

Giving voice to creative expression, in and out of Iran

The ongoing persecution has not stopped Iranian artists from working underground to produce music and promote human and civil rights.

In December, Parastoo Ahmadi, an Iranian female singer, released a video where she performed a concert in a traditional but empty venue without wearing a headscarf.  

She stated in a caption for the video that has 2.5 million views on YouTube, that she "wants to sing for the people I love. This is a right I could not ignore; singing for the land I love passionately."

Days later, an Iranian court opened a case against the singer, arguing the performance infringes on the country's Sharia law. She was arraigned and released on bail pending a trial.

As Iran's regime recently announced a boost to funds for state propaganda, dissident artists continue to find ways express themselves.

Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof's latest film, "The Seed of the Sacred Fig," a thriller exploring state violence, paranoia and censorship, was inspired by the mass protests in Iran in 2022.

After shooting the feature in secret — the Iranian regime had banned the director from filmmaking in 2017 — Rasoulof had to leave the production and flee the country by foot across the border. He had just been sentenced to eight years in prison and a whipping for criticizing the regime.

Having been produced and funded in Hamburg, "The Seed of the Sacred Fig" represented Germany at the recent Academy Awards, where it was nominated for best international feature film.

With the cast and creators behind "My Favourite Cake" facing a host of charges in Iran, their struggle has gone global. The likes of Juliette Binoche and Pedro Almodovar have joined 3,000-odd others to sign a petition demanding their human rights be upheld.

"We stand uniformly by Maryam & Behtash and their freedom and right to create and to express themselves, just like any filmmaker and artist should be able to," stated the petition by the International Coalition for Filmmakers at Risk. 

Edited by: Elizabeth Grenier

Correction, March 10, 2025: A previous version of this article stated that the rapper Toomaj Salehi was still in prison in Iran. He was in fact released in December 2024, though as of March 10 is again facing trial. The current text has been corrected accordingly.