Court sentences Iranian dissident rapper Toomaj Salehi to death, lawyer says [Video]

An Iranian revolutionary court has sentenced well-known Iranian rapper Toomaj Salehi to death for charges linked to Iran’s 2022-23 unrest, his lawyer told Iranian newspaper Sharq on Wednesday.

Salehi in his songs supported months of protests in Iran in 2022 sparked by the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman arrested for allegedly wearing an “improper” hijab.

Salehi was initially arrested in October 2022 after making public statements in support of the nationwide protests. In late 2023, just two weeks after being released on bail, Salehi was arrested again.

He was sentenced to six years and three months in prison but avoided a death sentence due to a Supreme Court ruling.

“Branch One of the Revolutionary Court of [the central city of] Isfahan in an unprecedented move, did not enforce the Supreme Court’s ruling …. and sentenced Salehi to the harshest punishment,” his lawyer Amir Raisian told Sharq.

Iranian judiciary has not confirmed …