Iranian rapper sentenced to death for supporting protests against Mahsa Amini’s death

A famous Iranian rapper, arrested almost two years ago for supporting protests against the death of Mahsa Amini, was sentenced to execution on Wednesday, 24th, according to the local press. Toomaj Salehi, 33, was accused of corruption, one of the most serious crimes in the country.

Salehi was arrested in October 2022 after mass demonstrations triggered by Amini’s death, a 22-year-old woman who was arrested for allegedly wearing the Islamic veil incorrectly. She died while being detained by police, and her family alleges that she suffered a blow to the head — something authorities deny.

The court of Will accused the rapper of “assistance to sedition, assembly and conspiracy, propaganda against the system and incitement to rebellion”, according to his lawyer Amir Raesian, because he supported the protests. Raeisian called the ruling “unprecedented” and announced he will appeal the decision.

“The first chamber of the Isfahan Revolutionary Court sentenced Tomaj Salehi to the most severe punishment, death, on charges of corruption in the country,” Raeisian told the reformist newspaper Shargh. The lawyer explained that the court considered the accusations against Salehi as examples of “corruption in the country” and therefore handed down the death sentence against the musician.

Amini’s death sparked strong protests that, for months, called for the end of the Islamic Republic and only subsided after a repression that left 500 dead and at least 22,000 detained and in which eight protesters were executedone of them in public.

Many women stopped wearing the veil after the protests as a gesture of civil disobedience and, recently, authorities called the so-called Morality Police back onto the streets to once again impose the use of Islamic clothing./EFE and AFP.