Iran sentences rapper Toomaj Salehi to death over 2022-23 unrest

TEHRAN: An Iranian revolutionary court has sentenced well-known Iranian rapper Toomaj Salehi to death for charges linked to Iran’s 2022-23 unrest, his lawyer told an Iranian newspaper.

Salehi in his songs supported months of protests in Iran in 2022 sparked by the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman arrested for allegedly wearing an “improper” hijab.

Salehi was initially arrested in October 2022 after making public statements in support of the nationwide protests. He was sentenced in 2023 to six years and three months in prison, but avoided a death sentence due to a Supreme Court ruling.

“Branch One of the Revolutionary Court of (the central city of) Isfahan in an unprecedented move, did not enforce the Supreme Court’s ruling …. and sentenced Salehi to the harshest punishment,” his lawyer Amir Raisian told Sharq.

Iranian judiciary has not confirmed the sentence yet. Salehi has 20 days to appeal the ruling. “We will definitely appeal this verdict,” his lawyer said.

The US Office of the Special Envoy for Iran deplored the sentence, calling it in a statement posted on X an example “of the regime’s brutal abuse of its own citizens, disregard for human rights, and fear of the democratic change the Iranian people seek.”