Toomaj Salehi is a rapper. He is 33 years old and has 2 million followers on Instagram. As far as he can count, that means he’s famous. In Iran, where music is forbidden, he is the most famous of all, a sort of idol. The revolutionary tribunal sentenced him to death. By hanging, as is the custom in those parts, on the charge of “corruption on earth”. He is not the first, he will not be the last. The news was given to the newspaper Shargh by Amir Raesian, his lawyer.
What does this condemnation mean? Probably that the regime is raising its game. Condemning such a famous figure to death is a sign that we have entered a new, even harsher phase of the repression of protests. After the barrage of missiles fired at Israel, the Taliban close ranks, even internally. And they hit where it hurts most. A new warning against young people, against those who took to the streets in 2022 embracing the anti-government protests that broke out in various cities across the country after the death of Mahsa Amini, beaten to death for a poorly worn veil.
«The point of no return – says the 34-year-old Italian-Iranian lawyer Shady Alizadeh – is all in the last very strong words from prison of Nobel Prize winner Narges Mohammadi (who The print he anticipated on Monday). Narges said that united we will win. Even today with the death sentence of Toomaj Salehi they think they are scaring us, but it won’t help, eighteen-year-olds are no longer afraid, they go into the streets without veils and veiled women accompany them, civil disobedience has become social union.”
Salehi is known for protest singing. His lyrics are a social denunciation against corruption, widespread poverty, the killing of demonstrators. He has been in and out of prison several times. In the last video on YouTube before his 2022 arrest he sang: «Someone’s crime was dancing with your hair in the wind. Someone’s crime was to be courageous and criticize 44 years of government. This is the year of failure.”
The first arrest was on September 12, 2021. They went to pick him up at home. The accusation then was of “propaganda against the regime” and “insulting the supreme authority”. Ten days later he was released on bail, awaiting trial. In January 2022 a six-month sentence and a fine. Not much, if you consider the circumstances.
Then there were the killing of Mahsa, the riots, the “Woman Life Freedom” movement and Toomaj became one of the most listened to symbols and voices. The regime’s media describe him as “one of the leaders of the revolts who promoted the violence.” Another arrest and this time things get worse. The accusation is of “propaganda activity against the government, cooperation with hostile governments and formation of illegal groups with the intention of creating insecurity in the country”. He ends up in Evin, the Tehran prison reserved for opponents of the regime. And here, as usual, the versions diverge. Two opposing versions: family members denounce torture, while a group of pro-regime activists publishes a video where a blindfolded man, who says he is Toomaj, admits his mistakes. Released again on bail in November 2023, he published a video on the Internet in which he recounted the torture during his imprisonment in a constantly lit cell for more than 200 days, adrenaline injections, beatings. Fake news, according to the regime, which cost him another arrest on November 30th. Now his lawyer has 20 days to avoid execution.
Comments Raha, 31 years old, Iranian rapper who emigrated to Italy, like many others. «I escaped from Iran after the death of Mahsa Amini, I protested with others and through my music, if I had remained in the Islamic Republic I could today be in the place of Toomaj Salehi, who unfortunately is not the first artist to have been convicted for his words in these two years.” Hip hop, rock, rap, he says, agitate the regime: «They take away our oxygen and we sing our anger, they arrest us and ask us to put music at the service of the regime under penalty of death but we sing the our anger, they execute us but we, like Toomaj Salehi, sing the protest of our anger.”
