Local media reported on April 24 that an Iranian court has handed down a death sentence to a well-known rapper who has been imprisoned for over a year and a half. His alleged crime is supporting nationwide protests ignited by the death of Mahsa Amini.
After the verdict on April 25, Iranian authorities found themselves under mounting pressure to release and exonerate a prominent rapper who had been sentenced to death. The rapper’s supporters argue that the verdict is merely retaliation for his music, which lent support to anti-government protests.
Toomaj Salehi, 33, was arrested in October 2022 after publicly backing the wave of demonstrations which erupted a month earlier, triggered by the death in custody of 22-year-old Amini.
The verdict, which can still be appealed, stunned activists as the lower court disregarded the Supreme Court’s move to overturn Salehi’s prison sentence on the same charge.
“This is devastating news and we must all be outraged and do everything in our power to #SaveToomaj. He is a national hero and treasure,” the Iran-born British actor Nazanin Boniadi wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
“We call for their immediate release. These are the latest examples of the regime’s brutal abuse of its own citizens, disregard for human rights, and fear of the democratic change the Iranian people seek,” said the office of the deputy U.S. special envoy for Iran, Abram Paley.
The French foreign ministry said it strongly condemned the “unacceptable” verdict against Salehi, saying it “comes on top of numerous other death sentences and unjustifiable executions linked to the 2022 protests in Iran.”
“This grotesque manipulation of the judicial process aims to silence dissent,” said Hadi Ghaemi, the executive director of the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran.
Supporters used the hashtag #SaveToomaj on social media in a bid to create momentum for an international campaign for his life to be spared.
