Iranian dissident rapper Toomaj Salehi released from prison

By Rosa Rahimi, CNN

London (CNN) — Toomaj Salehi, an Iranian dissident rapper and activist, has been released from prison, according to a statement issued Monday by his international legal team.

Salehi, 32, had been held in the Dastgerd prison in the city of Isfahan for 753 days in total, according to his team.

The rapper was arrested in October 2022 for supporting the nationwide Woman Life Freedom protests, which erupted following the death of Mahsa Jhina Amini, a young Kurdish-Iranian woman who was detained for wearing her headscarf improperly and later died in police custody.

Salehi had long been a voice of anti-government dissent in Iran. He had often used his music and social media posts to make political statements criticizing the repressive nature of the Iranian regime.

During the Woman Life Freedom demonstrations, he called on Iranians to protest against the government and posted videos of himself alongside protesters on the streets.

“Someone’s crime was dancing with her hair in the wind, someone’s crime was that he or she was brave and outspoken,” read the lyrics in one of his songs from October 2022, posted shortly before his arrest.

When he was briefly released from prison last year, Salehi posted a video to social media describing how he was tortured and held in solitary confinement. He was re-arrested shortly after, on charges of making false claims and spreading lies, according to Iranian judiciary news agency Mizan.

Earlier this year, the United States imposed sanctions on 12 Iranian officials over human rights abuses. One of the officials oversees the province where Salehi was allegedly tortured while in prison.

In April, a lower court in Isfahan sentenced Salehi to death for “spreading corruption on earth.” But in June, Iran’s Supreme Court overturned that sentence.

“The regime tried to silence Toomaj with a death sentence, tortured him to death to break his spirit and now, after so much pain and injustice, they released him,” his cousin Arezou Eghbali Babadi said in a statement Monday. “Toomaj should never have been in prison at all.”

Though Salehi’s case was processed in Iranian courts, his family had the support of international lawyers. The London-based Doughty Street Chambers and non-profits the Index on Censorship and the Human Rights Foundation filed appeals and complaints to the United Nations to challenge his detention.

“This is a time of celebration: Our brave, brilliant client Toomaj Salehi is finally free,” Caoilfhionn Gallagher, a lawyer with the Doughty Street Chambers who is the international counsel for the Salehi family, said in a statement.

Gallagher said Salehi had been targeted for years by the Iranian authorities, who attempted to silence him through arrests, imprisonment, torture, assaults and the death penalty for his support of human rights in Iran.

“This is also a time for vigilance,” she cautioned, crediting Salehi’s release to sustained pressure put on the Iranian authorities from both inside and outside the country.

“The world must not look away now: We must ensure Mr Salehi remains free and is never again subjected to the egregious violations of his rights.”

Calls for caution were reiterated by Salehi’s political sponsor in Europe, German member of parliament Ye-One Rhie. Such sponsors are parliamentarians across Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Canada who advocate for the release of individual political prisoners in Iran.

“We should remain cautious and keep both eyes on his freedom and safety. Especially with how sudden his release happened tonight,” she wrote on X.

Last month, Iranian journalist and activist Kianoosh Sanjari took his own life in Tehran, after threatening to kill himself if four activists detained by the Islamic Republic were not released. One of them was Salehi.

Salehi returned to his family last night, according to a statement by Negin Niknaam, his friend and the manager of his social media accounts.

“While expressing joy and happiness … we will wait for the end of all cases and false accusations, and for Toomaj’s complete and unconditional freedom.”

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CNN’s Artemis Moshtagian contributed to this report.