Iranian rapper Toomaj Salehi released after death sentence overturned

Iranian rapper Toomaj Salehi was released from prison Sunday after completing a one-year sentence for speaking out against the Iranian regime, the Iranian judiciary’s Mizan news agency reported early on Monday.

Salehi had been sentenced to death in April by a revolutionary court on charges linked to unrest in the country from 2022 to 2023, although Iran’s Supreme Court overturned that sentence in June.

His songs eulogized months-long protests sparked by the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman arrested for allegedly wearing an “improper” hijab that flouted Iran’s Islamic dress code.

Salehi was arrested in October 2022 after making public statements in support of the nationwide protests.

Amini’s death in September 2022 unleashed protests that posed the biggest challenge to the Islamic Republic’s clerical leaders in decades.

A United Nations fact-finding mission said in March that Amini’s death was unlawful and was caused by “physical violence in the custody of state authorities.” It added that Iranian women still suffer systematic discrimination.