Iran International:

A metalworker in Isfahan, central Iran, Toomaj Salehi has become a face of Iran's uprising, a rapper whose lyrics oppose repression, injustice, and poverty.

On death row, his fearless dissent has seen the young artist sentenced to death in Iran's continuing flurry of executions in the wake of the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom, movement, sparked by the death in morality police custody of Mahsa Amini for the alleged improper wearing of her headscarf.

One of Salehi's most famous political songs, "Buy a Rat Hole" in 2021, long before the death of the young Kurdish woman, addresses the corruption of Iranian authorities and the impunity of their actions. "You are a murderer if you cover up murder. To cover up murder, you must step in blood," he sang, his words even more poignant after state security forces murdered more than 500 Iranians in the wake of September 2022's uprising.

According to political analysts such as Majid Mohammadi, Toomaj's songs represent “the sentiments of a generation of young Iranians who ardently and persistently seek the regime's downfall", sentiments which rock the regime as it faces the harshest opposition since the establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979.

He was first arrested in September 2021 when twelve intelligence ministry agents raided his home in Isfahan. Thousands of Iranians condemned his imprisonment on social media, and Amnesty International called for his immediate release in a statement released on September 17. Later that month, Salehi was released on bail.

During the height of the Woman, Life, Freedom protests on October 30, 2022, the intelligence ministry in Isfahan province violently arrested him again for his artistic activities in favor of the anti-government movement. While in custody, he was tortured severely and forced to make televised "confessions".

Toomaj was sentenced to 75 months in prison last July after the Iranian Supreme Court effectively ruled out the possibility of a death sentence. More than a year after being arrested, he was released on bail in November. Several days after his release, he fearlessly published a video message detailing the torture and mistreatment he had endured at the hands of regime intelligence agents. Almost immediately, he was re-arrested.

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