Lawyer Denies Reports On Commuting Iranian Rapper’s Sentence
The lawyer of Toomaj Salehi, the imprisoned rapper protesting against the Iranian regime, has denied reports about the commutation of his sentence.
The lawyer of Toomaj Salehi, the imprisoned rapper protesting against the Iranian regime, has denied reports about the commutation of his sentence.
The IRGC-affiliated Tasnim news agency reported on Wednesday that Salehi's sentence had been commuted from execution to imprisonment due to his "active cooperation" with authorities.
However, Roza Etemad Ansari told Sharq daily that the report was untrue, stressing that the case is "in progress" and has not been closed yet.
The artist who has become an icon of the latest unrest has been detained for more than 240 days, and in late June, his trial was held behind closed doors. He could face the death penalty.
Salehi, 33, is an artist mostly known for his protest songs about Iran's social issues and injustice by the government and was arrested on October 30th as part of the crackdown on opponents in the wake of mass uprisings across the country.
His arrest came shortly after his interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, calling the regime "a mafia that is ready to kill the entire nation... in order to keep its power, money and weapons.”
In his politically charged songs such as “Buy a Rat Hole” (2021), he spoke out against repression, injustice, poverty, and authorities’ own corruption and impunity from prosecution.
On June 22, representatives of the German, Austrian, New Zealand, and Italian parliaments, who have become Salehi's political sponsors, announced that the court proceedings concerning the singer's charges were held 230 days after his arrest without media coverage or official notification.
“Any kind of presence in the upcoming elections is collaboration with lie and hypocrisy,” the late President Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani’s outspoken daughter has written in another open letter from Tehran’s Evin Prison. The letter is titled “Why We Should Not Participate In Elections”.
The Islamic Republic will be holding parliamentary elections on March 1. Apart from the 290 members of the parliament, prospective voters must simultaneously choose 88 members of the Experts Assembly in the March elections.
In the 2021 parliamentary elections, the ultra-conservative Guardian Council that screens candidates, rejected hundreds of reformists and centrists, handing the parliament to hardliners in a low-turnout election. Now, after months of anti-regime protests, hardliner loyalists of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei are concerned that most voters will stay home in March, and this will further erode the regime’s legitimacy.
Addressing Reformists, Hashemi who once was a lawmaker supporting reforms said ‘dictators’ would have had a hard time maintaining their power if reformists had not fallen into the trap of “protecting the system” at any cost. They should have shown resistance to dictatorship so freedom and justice would not have been “sacrificed in the name of security”, and group and individual interests had not “taken precedence over national interests”.
In her letter copies of which have been provided to media, Hashemi also pointed out that Iranians no longer care which political party or faction holds power in the country.
Protesters in recent years have said they don’t trust any of the factions making up the regime in the country.
Reformists can force the rulers to change their policies and eventually “take back” the power they gave to those in power now by abstaining from participation in elections that are neither fair nor free.
Hardline media attacked Hashemi Tuesday morning, equating her to radicals who want to overthrow the regime.
Javan newspaper affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard attacked all Reformists that it said are headed by former President Mohammad Khatami and accused them of conspiring to boycott the elections.
Mashregh News, another hardline publication linked with Iran’s security organs, also harshly criticized Hashemi for her letter.
Many believe that chances of anything other than a very low turnout seem to be quite slim unless the regime radically changes its approach and holds free elections, but this is very unlikely.
Many factors have contributed to the alienation of the public and even participation of noticeable reformists figures cannot change the circumstances and ensure a high turnout, reformist Shargh daily wrote Monday.
The state is now dominated by hardliners in all three branches of government, which has driven the economy into the ground, leaving little potential voter support.
Some pundits claim turnout in the 2024 elections may be as low as 15 percent.
The Reformist Front, an umbrella organization of several parties and groups, neither boycotted the 2020 election nor promoted it. Nearly all reformist candidates nominated by individual parties and groups were disqualified by the ultra-hardliner, Khamenei-appointed election watchdog, the Guardian Council.
The Front recently elected female politician Azar Mansouri as their chair. Some commentators believe that Mansouri is less likely than his predecessor Behzad Nabavi to surrender to pressures to get reformists involved in elections in which, at best, they will only be allowed to encourage people to vote.
Javan newspaper, however, accused Reformists of electing a woman as leader to ride the wave of recent ‘Women, Life Freedom’ protests.
Mashregh News called Mansouri “a radical” implying that the Guardian Council would not approve the candidacy of Reformists in the March elections.
