A woman in Iran has been whipped 74 times for not wearing a hijab in the street.

Roya Heshmati, a Kurdish-Iranian woman and a vocal critic of the compulsory hijab, was lashed 74 times by the regime’s strict morality police for not wearing a headscarf

She reportedly chanted while being flogged: “In the name of women, in the name of life, the clothes of slavery are torn.”

The cruel punishment took place after a photograph was published a few months ago which showed her in the capital Tehran without a hijab, according to Iranian human rights activists.

The Kurdish human rights organisation Hengaw said that she showed up to court for the punishment and removed her hijab against the advice of her lawyer.

But she said that she “came specifically for the lashes, and I would not yield.”

The officer carrying out the punishment told her to put her headscarf back on but she refused. Even after he threatened to add another 74 lashes to her sentence.

The activist said: “I maintained my stance and did not wear the hijab.”

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Eventually, two women forcibly put the headscarf on her head and handcuffed her to make sure that it would stay on, according to independent Iranian media.

Heshmati described the room in which she received the 74 lashes as a “mediaeval torture chamber”.

She said: “They opened the iron door. The room had cement walls. There was a small bed in the corner with iron shackles on both sides… A medieval torture chamber.”

Iran has strict headscarf rules that are still in place despite violent protests last year following the death of Mahsa Amini, another Kurdish-Iranian woman, who was beaten to death by the country’s morality police for failing to wear the hijab.

Her death led to an eruption of violent protests and calls for change in the strict Islamic regime.