The voice of the peaceful “Woman, Life, Freedom” revolution in Iran languishes on death row. Toomaj Salehi’s music is in danger of being silenced forever. The Islamic Republic sentenced to death the rapper who had sung about the revolution for freedom and his music accompanied the voice of young people, women and men, who fought and are fighting to overthrow the Islamic Republic. Now the life of the dissident rapper depends on the mobilization of the international community and on the strong and peremptory voice that must be heard outside of Iran in these hours.
There are already numerous urgent appeals from human rights organizations calling for the immediate release of Toomaj sentenced to death for “moharebeh” (war against God) and for “mofsed-e-filarz” (corruption on earth).
From the United States, Masih Alinejad, journalist and heroine of the women fighting against gender apartheid in Iran, implores the international community to mobilize to save the rapper’s life: “We must act now before it is too late. Toomaj Salehi was sentenced to death for daring to support the ‘Woman, Life and Freedom’ uprising through his music. It is necessary to show unwavering unity to save his life and that of dozens of protesters who rose up against the horrendous murder of Mahsa Amini. His voice must not be silenced.”
In these hours, human rights activists are carrying out demonstrations in front of consulates and embassies of the Iranian Republic in various European cities.
Toomaj’s entire family has been persecuted for four generations and still is. His mother was arrested because she was accused of having helped political prisoners and died from the suffering she suffered. Two of his uncles, Farshid and Houshang, were killed by the regime at the ages of 19 and 21 before he came into the world.
The artist is the son of a family belonging to the Bakhtiari ethnic group and it is no coincidence that his songs insist on the importance of cohesion between the different Iranian peoples. “If the world had only one color, black or white, it wouldn’t be beautiful.” For Toomaj the “Woman, Life, Freedom” revolution is a “roar of a thousand rages” and an expression of the revolutionary roots of Arabs, Assyrians, Armenians, Turkmens, Mazni, Sistani, Baluchis, Talesh, Tat, Azeris, Kurds, Gilak, Lur , Persians, qashqai. “Iran is a collection of rivers,” Toomaj sang.
The message at the center of the protests in Iran is therefore completely new and disruptive. A message that is uniting center and periphery with very eloquent slogans: “Kurds, Baluchis, Baha’ís, Azerbaijanis, Bakhtiaris, freedom and equality” and the motto “Woman, Life, Freedom” is equivalent to claiming “Democracy, secularism, freedom, civil rights and minority rights”.
This character of the youth revolution in Iran literally drove the regime crazy, especially as it was dealing with a terrible economic crisis.
The musician rapped on his popular media platforms about the revolution of the courageous Iranian women who since 16 September 2022, after the killing of the young Kurdish girl Jîna (Mahsa Amini) by the moral police, had peacefully rebelled to put an end to the apartheid regime of a kind practiced since 1979.
The rapper is yet another high-profile figure to be persecuted. In an interview given before ending up in the infamous Evin penitentiary, called the “prison of illustrious men”, he compared the guardians of the revolution to a mafia organisation, ready to kill the children of the entire nation in order to maintain power, control country’s economy, money and weapons.
The musician is known for his songs filled with rebellious political fervor. His video clips were shot in anonymous and peripheral locations in various Iranian provinces. He is an underground artist of hip hop culture who moves in the wake of the current of rappers who are activists in the political-social and civil rights fields and who use their strong communicative aptitude to express political opinions banned by the government. The dissident rapper is one of the strongest voices that has risen from the streets to the prisons against the mullahs; his lyrics are not about sex and drugs, but about fundamental rights, women’s rights, freedom and the fact that Iranians will have to take back their country and chase away the ayatollahs forever. “Don’t wait for a rescuer: you are the hero! If you and I become one, then there will be no limits,” are Toomaj’s lines in one of his best-known songs.
Toomaj Salehi’s voice had not been heard for many months. Why wasn’t there more news about him? How is Toomaj physically and mentally after months of torture? Many are wondering this among the “Z generation” in Iran who draws inspiration from him for the struggle for liberation from the Persian satrap. Every trace of him had been lost. Toomaj with his music helped young people evade the regime’s repression on the Internet. He is part, together with the other rap artist, Saman Yaşin, Kurdish, of that movement considered clandestine which fought and fights online censorship during the protests and civil disobedience against gender apartheid.
The thirty-four-year-old rapper was arrested for the first time in September 2021 immediately after the release of his anti-pasdaran song Rat Hole in which he urges regime agents, lobbyists and apologists to find a place to hide. Toomaj is often remembered with a refrain from this song of his in which he says, addressing the Pasdaran: “Buy a mouse hole to go and hide in.” After a week of protests on social media, he was released on bail to await trial. In January 2022, the Shahinshahr Islamic Revolutionary Court sentenced him to a six-month suspended prison sentence and a fine.
He was arrested again on October 30, 2022 together with a group of his friends in the village of Chahar Mahaal-Bakhtiari province in the western province and then taken to an unknown location. He withstood unspeakable torture inflicted on him by the torturers of the Revolutionary Guards who wanted to extort a false confession from him. About six months ago he was once again released on bail, but only for a few hours because he was arrested again, or rather kidnapped on the street by plainclothes Pasdaran agents who beat him and hit him with the butts of Kalashnikovs. . No arrest warrant had ever been issued against him, but the Pasdaran took him and took him to an unknown location.
Toomaj was never intimidated. He continued to tell the truth and for this reason he is still in prison and has been languishing on death row since April 24th. The Iranian regime wants to terrorize the population with the message that no one, not even the most popular person, can escape its ferocious repression.
The same persecution also affected the Kurdish rapper Saman Yaşin, 28, accused of demonstrating for the liberation of Iran. He too was brutally tortured in the first three weeks of his detention. He had been sentenced to death, but fortunately his sentence was overturned. Singer Shervin Hajipour, author of the musical song Baraye, which has become an anthem of the Revolution that began in 2022 for the liberation of Iran from the Islamic Republic, has also been behind bars in Evin prison since March 1st, and Hajipour’s sentence is l Yet another example of the regime’s repression of those who took part.
Shervin Hajipour won the 2023 Grammy Awards for “Best Song for Social Change”. She had published her text for the first time in September 2022, on Instagram. In just two days Baraye collected 40 million views, which greatly worried the ayatollahs who first imprisoned him and released him a month later. Baraye is a Persian word meaning “for”, “because of”. Hajipour received a three-year prison sentence for “inciting rioting and threatening national security,” as well as an eight-month sentence for “propaganda against the regime.” He was also barred from leaving Iran for two years and forced to write a song about “crimes committed by the United States.”
The regime finds it very difficult to enforce compliance with the hateful dress code, women are willing to sacrifice their lives to defend their dignity and freedom and leave the house with their hair in the wind, knowing that they may not even return there and be arrested and tortured or raped. This is why the Iranian authorities use the weapon of terror and now the life of rapper Toomaj depends on the pressure, strength and effectiveness of the mobilization of the international community.
