Iranian Supreme Court overturns death sentence for rapper Toomaj Salehi

Following the announcement that dissident rapper Toomaj Salehi had received a death sentencefor his involvement in the widespread protests that swept Iran in 2022, Salehi's lawyer Amir Raisian confirmed that the conviction had been overturned.

“Salehi's death sentence has been overturned,” Raisian said in a post on X, adding that the Supreme Court had ordered a retrial.

“The Supreme Court prevented an irreparable miscarriage of justice,” Raisian said, adding that the court also ruled that “Salehi's previous sentence (six years and three months) also did not comply with the rules for a multiplicity of crimes.”

Index on Censorship, a campaign group working with Salehi's family to free the rapper, welcomed the decision to overturn the death sentence.

“Toomaj Salehi uses his powerful art – his rap, his music, his lyrics – to support the human rights, democracy and freedom of the Iranian people,” the group said in a statement. statement. “It is for this reason that Iranian authorities have targeted him for years, attempting to silence him through arrests, imprisonment, torture, assault and even a death sentence. »

He adds: “It is essential that his rights are properly respected” and “even a shorter period of imprisonment would be an injustice”.

“Salehi has done nothing other than call for respect for his fundamental rights and those of other Iranians.”

Salehi, 33, was arrested in October 2022 after publicly support the protests which had erupted a month earlier, sparked by Amini's death while in the custody of the country's morality police after being arrested for wearing her hijab too loosely.

It was sentenced to death in April for the death penalty crime of “corruption on earth”, and was also convicted of “assisting sedition, assembly and collusion, propaganda against the state and calling for 'riot”.

The months-long protests sparked by Amini's death saw hundreds of people killed and thousands arrested.

Salehi is primarily known for his protest songs regarding Iranian societal issues and the policies of the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran – songs like “Mouse Hole”, “Turkmenchay”, and “Grenade”.

His YouTube music video released before his 2022 arrest included the lyrics: “Someone's crime was dancing with their hair blowing in the wind / Someone's crime was being brave and criticized… 44 years of your government / This is the year of failure.”

Salehi is not the only artist to have been targeted for his opposition to the government. Kurdish-Iranian rapper Saman Yasin, who was also arrested at the height of Iran's 2022 protests, was taken to a psychiatric hospital twice in less than a year, according to pro-reform media outlet IranWire. A Tehran court sentenced Yasin to five years in prison, according to the Kurdish human rights organization Hengaw.

In January, another singer, Mehdi Yarrahi, who had criticized the requirement for women to wear headscarves, was sentenced to a total of two years and eight months in prison on several charges. The court later changed Yarrahi's sentence to home detention due to his health problems.

Nine men were executed in cases linked to protests involving killings and other violence against security forces.

The decision to overturn Salehi's death sentence comes during Iran's presidential elections, which are scheduled to be held on June 28 after death of President Ebrahim Raïssi in a helicopter crash on May 19. One of the problems is the imposition of the hijab on women, but little has been said about the treatment of dissidents.

Additional sources • AFP – Index on censorship