Toomaj Salehi, a dissident rapper, has received a death sentence for his participation in the widespread protests that engulfed Iran in 2022, as confirmed by his lawyer. “An order for the execution of Toomaj Salehi has been issued,” tweeted Salehi’s lawyer, Amir Raesian, on Wednesday.
Following his arrest, Salehi has been detained, placed in solitary confinement, and reportedly subjected to torture.
In an unprecedented turn of events, a court in Isfahan overturned the Supreme Court’s decision on Salehi’s case on Tuesday, maintaining the original verdict of “corruption on earth” and imposing the maximum penalty of death, as reported by Iranian pro-reform outlets Shargh and Entekhab.
State media indicated that Salehi’s sentence could potentially be reduced by a pardoning committee if he chooses to appeal once again. Aged 32, Salehi has been an outspoken critic of the Iranian regime, expressing dissent through his rap lyrics and social media activism. He was briefly released from prison last year before being violently rearrested by the police and transferred to prison in Isfahan, according to witnesses at the time.
After appearing in a video disclosing that he had been tortured and held in solitary confinement for 252 days following his arrest in October 2022, Toomaj Salehi was rearrested, according to a statement by UN experts published by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).
Kurdish-Iranian rapper Saman Yasin, another artist arrested during the peak of Iran’s 2022 protests, has been transferred to a psychiatric hospital twice in less than a year, as reported by pro-reform news outlet IranWire.
According to the Kurdish human rights-focused group Hengaw, a court in Tehran has sentenced Yasin to five years in prison. The protests erupted following the suspicious death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while in police custody, triggering a nationwide wave of demonstrations. Iranian authorities responded with a brutal crackdown on the weeks-long protests.
“We vehemently denounce the death sentence handed down to Toomaj Salehi and the five-year prison term imposed on Kurdish-Iranian rapper Saman Yasin.” We demand their immediate release,” stated the United States’ Office of the Special Envoy for Iran on Twitter. “These cases are further evidence of the regime’s brutal oppression of its citizens, its disregard for human rights, and its fear of the democratic change sought by the Iranian people.”