Iranian rapper Toomaj Salehi sentenced to death for supporting protests

On Wednesday, 33-year-old Salehi was found guilty of efsad-e fel arz, or ‘corruption on earth’. According to human rights organizations, this is a vague term used to describe any form of dissident behavior by Iranian authorities. The charge, one of the most serious in the Iranian legal system, carries the death penalty.

The charges date back to the 2022 Iranian women’s protests, although the regime has not officially confirmed this. When the then 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian Mahsa Amini died in the hands of the authorities and an unprecedented number of women took to the streets unveiled, Salehi stood behind them. Just before Salehi was arrested in October 2022, he released a music video with the caption: “Someone was condemned for dancing with her hair in the wind,” referring to the protesting Iranian women.

The protests quickly turned into a general resistance against the Islamic regime and were violently suppressed by the Revolutionary Guards. Human rights organization Human Rights Watch previously estimated that 20,000 demonstrators were arrested.

Even before the protests, resistance was in Salehi’s blood. Due to his criticism of the regime, he was no longer allowed to give concerts, so he distributed his music online. In the summer of 2023, Salehi escaped execution thanks to a decision by the Supreme Court. Instead, he was sentenced to more than six years in prison.

Notorious prison

Salehi was reportedly held in the infamous Evin prison near the capital, where the regime has often held dissidents in the past. A few months later, in November, the artist was released on bail for unclear reasons.

Immediately after his release, Salehi testified about the 250 days in prison he had to spend in solitary confinement. His family also spoke about torture suffered by the artist. His opposition to the regime made Salehi popular, including among Iranian refugees abroad.

Last January, a revolutionary court that deals with matters related to “national security” issued new charges against Salehi. He can still challenge this week’s conviction in the Supreme Court, although it is highly questionable whether this will have any effect.

Tehran shows muscle

The sentence imposed on Salehi on Wednesday fits into a pattern of increased repression. The regime in Tehran seems to want to show its muscles again towards dissidents. In the year after the Amini protests, at least 853 civilians were executed, usually without a fair trial, Amnesty International calculated earlier this month. The organization sounded the alarm in a thirty-page report about the increased repression in Iran.

Since Iran’s attack on Israel on April 13, the regime appears to be tightening the reins even more. In recent days, images have regularly surfaced on social media showing Iranian women being forcibly taken off the street by the infamous morality police. The authorities, who renamed the operation ‘Noor’ (light), vowed on the day of the attack on Israel to take tough action against Iranian women who do not wear their hijab according to the extremely strict rules. International media report that the moral police are present en masse in the streets of Iranian cities.

Numerous testimonies are now circulating online from women who say they have been abused by the authorities. One such story was shared by Dina Ghalibaf, a student and journalist from Tehran. She wrote on X that the moral police took her aside in the subway, whereupon she was tasered. The young woman was then sexually assaulted, she said. Iran International, which operates from Washington, reports that Ghalibaf has been detained in Evin prison. Iranian human rights activists such as Narges Mohammadi, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last year, call on women to continue sharing their stories.