An Iranian court has sentenced to death a popular rapper jailed for more than a year and a half for supporting nationwide protests sparked by the death in custody of Kurdish-Iranian woman, Jina Mahsa Amini, local media reported Wednesday.
“Branch 1 of Isfahan Revolutionary Court… sentenced Toomaj Salehi to death on the charge of corruption on Earth,” the singer’s lawyer Amir Raisian said, quoted by the reformist Shargh newspaper.
Salehi, 33, was arrested in October 2022 after publicly backing the wave of demonstrations that erupted a month earlier, triggered by the death of 22-year-old Amini who had been detained over an alleged breach of the Islamic Republic’s strict dress rules for women.
The Revolutionary Court had accused Salehi of “assistance in sedition, assembly, and collusion, propaganda against the system and calling for riots,” his lawyer said.
“The fact is that the verdict of the court has clear legal conflicts,” the lawyer was quoted as saying. “we will certainly appeal against the sentence.”
