Rapper Toomaj Salehi, who was sentenced to death for speaking out against the Iranian regime, has been freed from custody.
He was released from prison on 1 December after completing a one-year sentence, according to Iran’s Mizan news agency.
Salehi had been sentenced to death in April by a revolutionary court on charges linked to unrest in the country from 2022 to 2023.
His songs supported protests which were triggered following the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody in September 2022.
The 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman was detained for allegedly wearing an “improper” hijab that flouted Iran’s Islamic dress code.
The demonstrations posed the biggest challenge to the Islamic Republic’s clerical leaders in decades and gained worldwide support.
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In London, protesters took to the streets in April against Salehi’s death sentence
During those protests, Salehi was one of “the leaders of the riots who promoted violence”, news site Iran International reported at the time, citing Iran’s state-controlled news agency, Fars.
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Salehi was arrested in October 2022 after making public statements in support of the nationwide protests.
In 2023, he was sentenced to six years in prison, but then briefly released on bail before being rearrested on further charges. He was sentenced to death in April 2024.
Across the world, demonstrations took place in support of Salehi, including in Spain, France, Germany, the US, Australia and London, where people wore masks of his face and carried signs reading “death sentence for rapping”.
Image: A rally was held in Berlin in April to demand Salehi’s release. File pic: AP
Image: There were also demonstrations in Paris against the rapper’s death sentence. File pic: AP
In May, more than 100 artists, musicians, writers and leading cultural figures signed a joint statement, organised by Index on Censorship, demanding his release.
They included Sting, Coldplay, Dire Straits’ David Knopfler and author Margaret Atwood, best known for her novel The Handmaid’s Tale.
“We stand in solidarity with Toomaj Salehi,” the statement read.
“No artist should be subject to any kind of judicial harassment for exercising their right to freedom of expression, much less be sentenced to death.”
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Salehi, who has 2.6 million followers on Instagram, had posted videos after Amini’s death talking about “revolution” and resistance.
Iranian officials had claimed Amini had suffered a heart attack and was taken to hospital, but her family blamed the police for her death, and reports say that she was beaten with batons and suffered a brain injury.
A United Nations fact-finding mission said in March that Ms Amini’s death was unlawful and was caused by “physical violence in the custody of state authorities”.
It added that Iranian women still suffer systematic discrimination.
After Salehi was sentenced to death in April, Iran’s Supreme Court overturned the decision in June.
Source : Sky News
