An Iranian court sentenced popular rapper Toomaj Salehi to capital punishment, imprisoned for more than a year and a half for supporting the national protests unleashed after the death of Mahsa Amini, his lawyer reported on Wednesday, April 24. Amini died in the custody of Iranian authorities after being detained by the Morality Police, which routinely arrests women it deems do not comply with the mandatory headscarf law.
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Toomaj Salehi33, was arrested in October 2022 after publicly supporting the wave of demonstrations that broke out a month earlier, triggered by the death – in the custody of the Iranian authorities – of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman, a member of a minority Iranian Kurdish woman, who had visited Tehran with her brother and who was detained by the Moral Police for an alleged violation of the strict dress standards for women in the Islamic Republic.
Salehi's arrest came shortly after he conceded a very critical interview with the regime to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. “We are facing a mafia that is willing to kill the entire nation, in order to keep its power, its money and its weapons,” Salehi declared in the interview.
Initially considered a forced disappearance, his arrest was later made official, after appearing in a video published on November 2 by Iranian state media. The video, of supposed confusion, showed the first images of Salehi after his arrest. It showed a tattooed man, wearing a black sleeveless T-shirt, sitting on the ground, blindfolded, looking bloody and bruised.
Human rights activists condemned the recording as a forced confession. Salehi is one of the numerous personalities detained as part of the massive repression, in which dozens of journalists, lawyers and figures from civil society and culture have been arrested.
Salehi was initially detained in October 2022 after making public statements in support of nationwide protests. He was sentenced in 2023 to six years and three months in prison, but avoided the death penalty thanks to a ruling from the Supreme Court.
“Isfahan Revolutionary Court Branch 1 sentenced Salehi to death on corruption charge”, declared the singer's lawyer, Amir Raisian, quoted by the reformist newspaper Shargh. The court, “in an unprecedented move, stressed its independence and did not apply the Supreme Court's ruling,” the lawyer said, adding that he will “without a doubt” appeal the ruling.
“The fact is that the court's verdict has clear legal conflicts. The Supreme Court, as the appellate authority, had reviewed the case and issued a ruling to the lower court to remove the defects in the ruling,” he said.
“The contradiction with the Supreme Court ruling is considered the most important part and at the same time the strangest thing about this ruling,” he explained.
The Revolutionary Court had accused Salehi of “aiding sedition, assembly and collusion, propaganda against the system and calling for riotsSalehi was released on bail on November 18, Raisian said then, adding that the Supreme Court had found “flaws in the initial sentence” of six years in prison.
The rapper was arrested again less than two weeks later.
Hijab patrols
Initial accusations against Salehi included spreading “lies on the Internet” and “propaganda against the state,” as well as inciting people to violence and “having formed and led illegal groups with the aim of disrupting security in cooperation with a hostile government.” “to Iran.
Another singer, Mehdi Yarrahi, who supported the protest movement and criticized mandatory dress standards for women, He was sentenced to a total of two years and eight months in prison.
In the months of unrest that followed Amini's death on September 16, 2022, hundreds of people were killed, including dozens of security personnel, and thousands more were detained.
Iranian authorities called the protests “riots” and accused Tehran's foreign enemies of fomenting them. Nine men have been executed in cases related to the protests, for homicides and other acts of violence against security forces.
Following Amini's death, a growing number of women began appearing in public across the country without respecting the dress code, and the Moral Police had kept a low profile.
However, since April 13, the Iranian Police have begun to tighten controls on women who ignore the rules by deploying patrol vans in the main squares of Tehran, according to local media.
The media reported that the capital's police had launched a campaign codenamed “Noor”, a Persian word meaning light, in its efforts to redouble repression against those who violate the dress code, known as hijab, which forces women to cover their hair and bodies in public spaces.
In an effort to punish those who break hijab laws, The authorities have also closed cafes and restaurants where they say the use of the hijab was not respected.
With information from AFP.
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