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.

  • mister_monster@monero.town
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    176
    ·
    7 months ago

    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?

      • werefreeatlast@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        14
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        7 months ago

        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.

        • Cosmic Cleric@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          13
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          edit-2
          7 months ago

          I’ve always wondered what the heck they stand to gain…

          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)

          • eronth@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            7 months ago

            Eh, you tend to learn how to make anything you do sound like huge success, regardless of whether it actually is or isn’t.

        • dovahking@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          7 months ago

          Those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it. And politicians suck at learning lessons.

      • kromem@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        13
        ·
        7 months ago

        Until it isn’t.

        Ask Gaddafi how ‘fear’ worked out as a tactic in the end.

        • DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          14
          ·
          7 months ago

          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.

  • Grandwolf319@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    36
    ·
    7 months ago

    Imo this is a great example of what not having freedom of speech actually looks like. It’s not when you get banned on a private social media platform. It’s when government just kills you for talking.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    7 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    “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.

    The Revolutionary Court had accused Salehi of “assistance in sedition, assembly and collusion, propaganda against the system and calling for riots”, the lawyer said.

    Salehi was freed on bail on November 18, Raisian said at the time, adding the Supreme Court had found “flaws in the initial sentence” of six years in prison.

    In the months of unrest that followed Amini’s death on September 16, 2022, hundreds of people were killed, including dozens of security personnel, and thousands more were arrested.


    The original article contains 262 words, the summary contains 150 words. Saved 43%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • mycathas9lives@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    7 months ago

    This young mans contract with life was terminated for expressing himself in music. This speaks volumes of this part of the world. Not a place to ever go or support. Let it stay a dust bowl of human suffering and need. It’s what that area wants.

  • 3volver@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    12
    arrow-down
    18
    ·
    7 months ago

    Iran is one of the biggest threats to global stability alongside Russia at this point. If they keep fucking around with Israel they’re going to feel Freedom at full force launched right up their fucking ass.

    • Ech@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      38
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      7 months ago

      What the fuck is wrong with you? This is an actual person that’s going to actually be murdered. And you’re here saying it’s ok because he makes music you might not like. Go get help.

    • BreakDecks
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      13
      arrow-down
      7
      ·
      7 months ago

      I have never met someone who has a specific hatred of rap music that wasn’t using it as a proxy to signal racial hatred.

      Like the guy who answers “anything but rap” when asked what kind of music they like. You know exactly what they mean to say…

      • angrystego@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        8
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        7 months ago

        I know what you mean, but you don’t have to like rap. There are people who just genuinely don’t enjoy it.

        • BreakDecks
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          7 months ago

          That’s not what I’m saying. I’m talking about people who single rap out or make it the butt of a tasteless joke.

          If someone feels the need to joke that everyone who likes or makes rap should be executed, you really just need to take a look at the demographics that listen to or create rap music, and you get a distinct picture of what they don’t like about the rap community (spoiler: it isn’t the music).

          And if you ask someone what they like to listen to, and they don’t give a real answer and single out rap as the only genre they dislike, they’re not actually telling you what they like or don’t like, they’re just taking a jab at part of Black culture for the sake of signalling their disapproval.

          If you don’t like rap music aesthetically, it’s pretty easy to convey that without sounding like a racist by dismissing the entire genre as if the world would be a better place without it, because people notice when someone focuses their vitriol specifically at PoC cultural strongholds.

          I personally don’t listen to much rap, and don’t consider it my style, but I’m sure has hell not going to insult it or the people who enjoy it, because I respect people’s aesthetic and cultural differences and don’t reflexive hate Blackness.

      • DrRatso
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        7 months ago

        Eh, rap is so different from other genres imo, that it can kind of make sense, especially if their only exposure to rap is what hits charts.