The Supreme Court of Iran annulled this Saturday (22) the death sentence handed down against rapper Toomaj Salehi for supporting the protests triggered by the death of Mahsa Amini, the young woman detained for wearing the Islamic veil inappropriately, according to her lawyer, Amir Raesian.
“The death sentence against Toomaj Salehi has been overturned. As expected, the Supreme Court avoided an irreparable judicial error”, declared Raeisian on the social network X.
The lawyer stated that Salehi’s case will be sent to another court to be analyzed again and assured that the Supreme Court also considered the initial sentence of six years and three months in prison against the musician excessive.
Raeisian reported in late April that the first chamber of the Isfahan Revolutionary Court “sentenced Toomaj Salehi to the harshest punishment, death, on charges of corruption,” for his support of the protests sparked in 2022 by Amini’s death.
The country’s corruption charge covers a range of crimes against public security and Islamic morality and, in Salehi’s case, includes charges such as “sedition, propaganda against the system and incitement to riots”.
After the death sentence, those around the rapper denounced on social media the increase in “psychological pressure” against him and stated that communication with the outside world had been cut off in Dastgerd prison, in Isfahan.
The musician was arrested at the end of October 2022 accused of corruption and sentenced in July 2023 to six years and three months in prison, a sentence that was rejected on appeal by the Supreme Court, which sent the case back to a court of first instance to reconsider. the case.
In November 2023, the rapper was released on bail, but was arrested again just 11 days later. Months later, in April this year, he was sentenced to death, a sentence that provoked strong international criticism.
The rapper and dissident has clashed with authorities in the past and was sentenced to six months in prison and a fine in January 2022 for “provoking violence and insurrection”, although the prison sentence was suspended.
The death of young Amini sparked strong protests that for months called for the end of the Islamic Republic and only ended after a repression that caused 500 deaths and the arrest of at least 22,000 people, and in which eight protesters were executed, one of them in public.
Many women stopped wearing the veil after the protests as a gesture of civil disobedience and now the authorities have taken the so-called Moral Police back to the streets to re-enforce the use of Islamic clothing.
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