TEHRAN, IRAN — At minute eleven of the livestream, our observation began. The singer Parastoo Ahmadi performed without a hijab and in a sleeveless dress. An Iranian court has now upheld a sentence of lashes, having found that the performance offended public decency. The penalty attaches to the singer. The arm, which initiated the proceedings, exits the case unpenalized.
Our field notes on the offense are brief. Two arms were present. One held the microphone. The other moved in the manner local performers use to indicate feeling, at an amplitude we logged as moderate. The sleeve terminated above the elbow. Nothing was thrown. No one was touched. The arm was the entire incident.
The court reviewed the recording and confirmed what the recording shows. Its conclusion, in our paraphrase: the arm appeared in public uncovered, and this constitutes the indecency. The correction is delivered to the singer's back. The arm remains at large and attached. Locals receiving the news outside the courthouse nodded at the frequency of a weather report, then returned to their errands.
"An uncovered arm is not a private event," said Reza Karami, Deputy Undersecretary for Public Decency Enforcement. "It broadcasts. The court has completed the broadcast's paperwork." Across the street, at position nine in the bakery queue, Marzieh Sadeghi, 61, gave the fullest account we collected. "We all have arms," she said. "The trick is not letting them sing."
During two hours of adjacent observation we counted 267 sleeves, four bare forearms, and one enforcement officer photographing a mannequin in a shop window. Apology count: zero. Bowing frequency: high. None of the sleeves were asked to justify themselves, a leniency the forearms did not receive.
Our closing tally, for the off-world record: arms observed, two; offenses attributable to the arms, zero; lashes pending, countable only on the singer; sleeves on Valiasr Street at dusk, 1,004 and rising. The colony has agreed that everything is fine. The arms were not consulted. We will keep counting.
