Cultural figures in appeal for death-sentenced rapper – Sydsvenskan

Among the 37 people who signed the petition are director Ali Abbasi, actors Bahar Pars and Lo Kauppi, writers Balsam Karam and America Vera-Zavala and artists Karin Dreijer and Fanny Risberg.

“We demand that the Swedish state put pressure on the Iranian Islamic regime to revoke the sentence against the rapper Toomaj Salehi and all political prisoners,” they write.

Toomaj Salehi is an anti-regime rapper known in Iran and among the Iranian diaspora. He was arrested in connection with the nationwide protests that broke out in the fall of 2022, after a young woman died in the custody of the notorious morality police where she was taken because she was not considered to have worn her veil properly.

Salehi was accused, among other things, of “spreading corruption in the world” and was first sentenced to prison. For a period, he was released on bail and testified about the torture he endured for just over a year in prison.

He was then detained again, and has been imprisoned ever since. On Wednesday, a revolutionary court sentenced him to death for “war against God,” in addition to “spreading corruption in the world,” according to opposition Iranian media.