Iran’s Supreme Court overturns death sentence against popular rapper Toomaj Salehi, lawyer says
Iran’s Supreme Court has overturned the death sentence against well-known rapper Toomaj Salehi. Salehi was imprisoned for supporting the nationwide protests sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini, his lawyer said on Saturday.
“Salehi’s death sentence has been overturned,” the rapper’s lawyer, Amir Raisian, said in a post on X, adding that the Islamic Republic’s Supreme Court had ordered a retrial.
In April, an Iranian court sentenced Salehi to death for the capital crime of “corruption on earth,” Raisian said at the time.
The rapper was also found guilty of “aiding and abetting incitement, assembly and collusion, propaganda against the state and incitement to riot,” the lawyer explained.
Salehi, 33, was arrested in October 2022 after publicly supporting the demonstrations that had broken out a month earlier and were sparked by Amini’s death in police custody.
Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman, was arrested by the morality police in Tehran for allegedly violating the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code for women.
“The Supreme Court has 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 wide range of crimes.”
Hundreds of people, including dozens of security forces, were killed in the months-long protests sparked by Amini’s death.
Thousands were arrested as authorities took action to quell what they said were foreign-instigated “unrest.”
In January, another singer, Mehdi Yarrahi, who had criticized the headscarf requirement for women, was sentenced to a total of two years and eight months in prison on several charges, which he should have served concurrently.
Due to his health problems, the court later commuted Yarrahi’s sentence to house arrest.
Nine men were executed in connection with the protests, which included killings and other acts of violence against the security forces.
Since 1983, after the Islamic Revolution of 1979, it has been compulsory for women in Iran to cover their necks and heads.
Since the protests, women have increasingly been ignoring the strict dress code, but Iranian police have tightened controls on women who ignore the rules in recent months.
In recent weeks, Iranian media reported that police in the capital had launched a campaign codenamed “Noor,” the Persian word for light, to step up crackdowns on those who violate the dress code.
In an effort to crack down on those who violate the hijab law, authorities have also closed cafes and restaurants that do not respect the wearing of the hijab.
The country’s parliament has also approved a draft law on chastity and hijab, which would impose stricter penalties on women who do not comply with the dress code.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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