Iran’s Supreme Court overturns death sentence against rapper Salehi, says lawyer

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.

“Salehi’s death sentence has been overturned,” the rapper’s lawyer, Amir Raisian, wrote on X on Saturday.

He said 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.

He was also found guilty of “aiding and abetting sedition, assembly and collusion, propaganda against the state and incitement to insurrection,” the lawyer said.

Salehi, 33, was arrested in October 2022 after publicly supporting demonstrations that had broken out a month earlier following the death in custody of Ms Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman who had been arrested by the morality police in Tehran for allegedly violating the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code for women.

In July last year, he was sentenced to six years and three months in prison after the Supreme Court intervened to prevent a death sentence. However, in January the Revolutionary Court in Isfahan added further charges to those he had previously been acquitted of, resulting in his death sentence.

“The Supreme Court has prevented an irreparable miscarriage of justice,” Raisian said, adding that the court also ruled that Salehi’s “previous verdict also did not comply with the rules on a wide range of crimes.”

Hundreds of people, including dozens of security forces, were killed in the months-long protests sparked by Ms Amini’s death.

Thousands were arrested as authorities took action to quell what they said were foreign-instigated “unrest.”

In January, singer Mehdi Yarrahi, who had criticized the law requiring women to wear headscarves in public, was sentenced to 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 disregarded the strict dress code, but Iranian police have increased enforcement in recent months.

Iranian media recently reported that police in the capital have launched a campaign called “Noor,” the Persian word for light, to crack down on violators. Authorities have also closed cafes and restaurants where the wearing of the hijab was not respected.

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.

With reporting from agencies

Updated: June 22, 2024, 2:07 p.m.