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

An Iranian revolutionary court has sentenced one of the Islamic Republic's best known rappers, Toomaj Salehi, to death for charges linked to Iran’s 2022-23 unrest, according to his lawyer and state media.

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.

“We will definitely appeal this verdict,” his lawyer said.

On Thursday the judiciary’s media department confirmed Salehi’s death sentence based on charges of “corruption on earth”, adding that the verdict entitled the defendant to a sentence reduction due to “his expression of remorse and cooperation with authorities.”

Salehi has 20 days to appeal his sentence with the Supreme Court. If the sentence is upheld, the judiciary’s amnesty commission would review his case to potentially commute his sentence, the judiciary media’s department added.

The U.S. 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.”

The hashtag #FreeToomaj has been trending on social media platforms such as X, with users calling for Salehi’s immediate release.