A rapper was sentenced to death for protesting in Iran

Dissident rapper Toomaj Salehi has been sentenced to death for his involvement in the large-scale protests that took place in Iran in 2022, according to his lawyer.

“An execution order has been issued for Toomaj Salehi”Salehi’s lawyer, Amir Raesian, announced, according to CNN.

The rapper was detained, held in solitary confinement and allegedly tortured after being arrested.

An Isfahan court overturned the higher Supreme Court’s decision in Salehi’s case on Tuesday, upholding the original verdict for “corruption on earth” and setting the maximum penalty of death, according to Iranian publications Shargh and Entekhab.

State media said Salehi’s sentence could be reduced by a pardon commission if he appeals again.

Salehi, 32, who has criticized the Iranian regime and spoken out strongly against the government in his song lyrics and on social media, was briefly released from prison last year but police arrested him again in a crackdown brutally and sent him to prison in Isfahan.

He was re-arrested after appearing in a video where he revealed he was tortured and held in solitary confinement for 252 days after his arrest in October 2022, UN experts said.

Another Iranian artist, Kurdish rapper Saman Yasin, who was also arrested during the 2022 protests, was transferred to a psychiatric hospital twice in less than a year, according to IranWire.

A court in Tehran sentenced Yasin to five years in prison, according to the Hengaw organization.

Protests swept across the country following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody. The authorities cracked down brutally on the demonstrators and arrested hundreds of people, many of whom received harsh sentences in the meantime.

“We strongly condemn the death sentence of Toomaj Salehi and the five-year sentence for rapper Saman Yasin. We demand their immediate release“, the Office of the United States Special Envoy for Iran wrote on Twitter. “These are the latest examples of the regime’s brutal abuse of its own citizens, disregard for human rights and opposition to the democratic change the Iranian people want.”

And UN experts have called for Salehi’s release and the abolition of the death penalty. “We are alarmed by the imposition of the death penalty and the alleged killing of Mr. Salehi, which appears to be solely related to the exercise of his right to freedom of artistic expression”, said the experts.

Salehi’s political sponsor in Europe, German MP Ye-One Rhie, called Salehi’s death sentence “absurd and inhumane”.

Publisher: DC