According to an early Monday report by the Iranian judiciary’s Mizan news agency, Iranian rapper Toomaj Salehi was freed from prison on Sunday after serving a one-year term for his anti-regime remarks.
A revolutionary court had condemned Salehi to death in April on accusations related to unrest in the country in 2022–2023, but the Iranian Supreme Court reversed that decision in June.
Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman who was imprisoned for reportedly wearing a “improper” headscarf that violated Iran’s Islamic dress code, died in police detention, sparking months of demonstrations that his songs praised.
After publicly endorsing the countrywide demonstrations, Salehi was jailed in October 2022.
The demonstrations that followed Amini’s murder in September 2022 were the largest obstacle to the religious authorities of the Islamic Republic in decades.
According to a United Nations fact-finding team, Amini’s death was illegal and the result of “physical violence in the custody of state authorities” in March. Iranian women continue to face systemic discrimination, it noted.
