Iranian rapper Toomaj Salehi spent 377 days in prison, 252 of them in solitary confinement. He was arrested on October 30, 2022 during the uprisings in Iran sparked by the murder of a young woman, Mahsa Amini, who was accused of improper head covering and died in the custody of the country’s morality police.
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Salehi was sentenced to six years and three months in prison.
During his time in Iran’s brutal prisons, Salehi, 33, was tortured repeatedly. His fingers, leg, and ribs were broken multiple times and healed incorrectly. His left eye was injured severely and his eyesight damaged. While being tortured, he was kept conscious through the injection of a drug. His offenses are “insulting the Supreme Leader,” “communicating with hostile governments,” and the hugely nebulous favorite of Iran’s Islamic regime, “corruption on earth.” He was eventually only charged with the latter. On April 24, 2024 the Iranian authorities sentenced Salehi to death.
All for rapping.
His “crimes” were committed through his rapid-fire rhymes. The incendiary rapper spoke out fearlessly against Iran’s dictatorial theocracy through his music. In the process, his intellectual superiority became apparent to the authorities, and in Iran that is dangerous. The gravel-voiced Salehi is reminiscent of classic Iranian bards like Rumi, Hafez, and Ferdowsi in his poetic word choices. His meticulous lyricism relays his messages most effectively. The beats amplify his dissidence.
On the opposite end of the Iranian musician spectrum, Grammy winner Shervin Hajipour won the Special Merit Award for Best Song for Social Change for his moving song “Baraye,” presented, symbolically, by First Lady Jill Biden. The song’s lyrics are taken from Iranian people’s social media posts at the time of Amini’s murder.
Shervin, 27 years old, posted the song to Instagram on September 28, 2022, less than two weeks after Amini’s death. The response was overwhelming. Viewed millions of times, “Baraye” struck a deep and emotional chord with Iranians and non-Iranians alike. The song became the anthem for Iran protests around the globe.
He was arrested on September 29, 2022 — the day after he posted “Baraye,” and made to remove the song from his social media. The charges were “propaganda against the system” and “inciting people to violent acts.” He was released on bail and remains on house arrest in Iran while his case goes through the legal process, at least that’s what the official statement is.
These are just two of many examples of musicians in Iran who are risking their lives to express the reality of life in this repressive regime. Others include pop singer Mehdi Yarrahi, rapper Saman Yasin (who was jailed, tortured, then forced into a psychiatric facility for psychological punishment), rapper Mehdi Rajabian (who spent three years in prison, including three months in solitary and 40 days on a hunger strike), and electronic musician Ali of Techno Tehran Records. Far greater in number are those artists whose musical output pushed them out of their home country. They live around the globe and continue to speak out. Among these are Hichkas, Amir Tataloo, Shahin Najafi, Justina, Putak, Pishro, Erfan, and FarAvaz Farvardini, to name just a few.
It is not just musicians, but filmmakers, actors, visual artists, and even athletes and journalists are targets. If you have a public profile, you are on the government’s radar and in imminent danger.
An ongoing fear of mine is being imprisoned by the Islamic Republic. It started when I was nine years old when the theocratic regime took over the country. Born in the U.S. to Iranian parents, I went to American schools and spoke English as a first language. My Farsi, the language of Iran, was patchy at best. My worry wasn’t so much free speech as it was the wrong speech. Saying the wrong thing or using the wrong words that might lead to me being questioned were constantly on my mind.
When I was stopped by the morality police the first time, I lost all speech. They detained me because I was wearing pink lip gloss. They berated me for my lip gloss, forced me to remove my sunglasses so they could point out my minor swipes of eyeliner, and handed me a tissue, directing me to take it off. They made me wipe my lips and eyes in front of a staring crowd, while I was humiliated and silent. These Revolutionary Guards were all women. Not having any speech meant I also had no resistance, which, in retrospect, likely saved me from something worse, like Mahsa Amini’s fate.
A month before leaving Iran, I was stopped by the female Revolutionary Guard again. This time they followed me to our home and forced their way in, looking for me and my “not Islamic enough” attire. My parents were terrified that I would be taken away. While the Guard was making their way up the stairs, my parents directed me to wash my face and return wearing my school uniform while they tried to stave off the Guard. I did, and was told off by the Guard in front of my parents. Once again, I had no speech. And once again, maybe it stopped me from imprisonment. But, my parents didn’t allow me to leave the house without supervision for the remainder of my time in Iran. I consented, effectively giving up freedom, but too scared not to give it up.
My parents never recovered from that home visit. My father spoke about it until his dying day some 32 years later. I know this is also how Salehi’s and Hajipour’s parents feel after having their sons taken away. Not to mention the families of the countless other imprisoned musicians, artists, filmmakers, athletes, and journalists who have spoken out.
Many of these resisters were born after the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and have never known any kind of freedom of speech. They grew up under a stifling blanket of fear of extreme penalties for expressing opinions. I sometimes feel that’s the case here in the U.S. when you don’t go along with the status quo of your social circle, particularly in these politically charged times. But you’re not going to go to prison for it, get tortured for it, sexually assaulted, not receive due process, and quite possibly get executed for it.
Last year, the Islamic government executed an astonishing 834 prisoners on charges similar to that of Salehi and Hajipour. With a high death toll already in 2024, it seems the government is looking to best its own record. Yet, Hajipour posted a gorgeous new song in January, “Ashghal,” which translates to “Trash,” to his social media and streaming platforms. The trash he is referring to is himself, how he had no one to post his bail, how he’s not allowed to sing, how if everyone leaves, he will still stay in Iran because no matter where he goes, his heart will be there, as a son of Iran.
Salehi also keeps returning to music. His first arrest was in September 2021. The charge was for truth-telling in his raps about corruption, poverty, executions, and violence in Iran. He was released on bail and went right back to the microphone, picking up where he left off.
“[Hip-hop] is one genre [the Islamic regime] is afraid of,” Iranian electronic musician Parsa told me in 2020 when I spoke to him for my story “Tech is Music to Their Ears” for the Los Angeles Times. “Rapping is about arguing and sharing your beliefs. It’s either about parties, or it’s about social problems.”
Salehi was released from prison on November 18, 2023. This was not an amnesty as much as it was a strategic move on the part of the government to quell public discontent. Soon after his release, Salehi posted a video to his YouTube channel, speaking about his time in prison, thanking everyone who supported him while he was inside, and apologizing for any distress his detainment may have caused. He was violently re-arrested less than two weeks after that video posted, beaten with rifle butts and taken into custody, and accused of “…making false claims publicly on social media without supporting documentation, and on charges of spreading lies and disturbing public opinion.” In other words, total bullshit charges.
Arrest, torture, and exile are extreme prices to pay for lyrics. This is a sharp contrast to getting slapped with a Parent Music Resource Center sticker -– guaranteed to boost your sales, by the way, so you want that — or getting trolled on X, or the most ineffective of all Western punishments, “getting canceled” — which only works if someone accepts the cancellation.
Musicians in Iran have nothing to gain and absolutely everything to lose, including their lives. They don’t receive any royalties from the U.S.-based platforms on which they have millions of streams and views because of the sanctions against that country. Salehi’s passport has been confiscated, and he isn’t able to leave Iran -– even if his death sentence is overturned. Neither is Hajipour. As of March 1, 2024, Hajipour has been sentenced to three years and eight months in prison.
But they keep resisting through their music.
“The passion you have for your homeland is a part of you and you fight for it, no matter what, that feeling keeps you going,” says Arash Rahbary, principal songwriter, guitarist, and vocalist for the Iranian metal band TarantisT. Based in Los Angeles since 2009, Rahbary grew up in a post-revolution Iran. He accessed Western music illegally and performed secret shows in the basement of his family home, in danger of being arrested if he was discovered. TarantisT has released numerous songs protesting the Islamic government.
“To express ourselves,” says Rahbary, of why they took the risk. “To talk against a situation that was not normal. To talk against all the pressure and brainwashing [the government] was doing.”
“The key is in one’s ability to take risks,” Joan Baez told me when I once asked her about her activism. “That’s the hardest thing. Without that risk, we’re not going to make any real social change.”
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