Popular rapper Toomaj Salehi wrote songs in support of the protest movement in Iran following the death of Jina Mahsa Amini in 2022. He has been in jail for over a year.
Popular Iranian rapper Toomaj Salehi was sentenced to death over his role in supporting the protest movement triggered by the death of Jina Mahsa Amini, Iranian reformist newspaper Shargh Daily reported quoting the musician’s lawyer.
“Branch 1 of Isfahan Revolutionary Court … sentenced Toomaj Salehi to death on the charge of corruption on Earth,” the singer’s lawyer Amir Raisian told the newspaper.
The charge covers a broad range of offenses including those related to Islamic morality and can carry the death penalty.
Salehi, 33, was arrested for showing support for anti-government protests, following the death of 22-year-old Iranian-Kurdish woman Jina Mahsa Amini in September 2022. He had also written songs about the protests.
Good god Iran’s shit is all over the place. He gets sentenced to 6 years, appeals it, gets sentenced to death. Death dude. For saying something out loud. How do governments like this expect to ever gain legitimacy in the eyes of the people they rule?
They don’t want legitimacy, they want to rule by brute force
I’ve always wondered what the heck they stand to gain… what’s the reason for all the shitiness if you as the dicktator end up hung on a pole later for the next dicktator.
For the same gain as why Putin’s adversaries fall out of tall building windows; less adversaries. Also, scare the population into submission.
And when your choice is either success or death, you tend to double-down, again, and again.
Anti Commercial-AI license (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
Eh, you tend to learn how to make anything you do sound like huge success, regardless of whether it actually is or isn’t.
Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. And politicians suck at learning lessons.
Because if they do it right, they will be the one wearing the boots that hold the heads of the masses to the ground
money
Fear is the most powerful legitimacy authoritarians have.
Until it isn’t.
Ask Gaddafi how ‘fear’ worked out as a tactic in the end.
Gaddafi is an excellent example of why most tyrants ban education instead of paying for everyone’s college.
What a weird dude he was. So many unforced errors, so much unnecessary violence mixed with actually seeming to want to improve the standard of living.
It worked as well as any tyrant deserves.