(Paris) An Iranian rapper arrested at the end of October, after having expressed his support for demonstrations hostile to the regime, risks being sentenced to death at the end of a trial which opened on Saturday “in camera”, affirmed his relatives on his Twitter account.
Iran is the scene of a protest movement sparked on September 16 by the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd who died after her arrest by the morality police in Tehran.
The authorities denounce these protests as “riots” encouraged according to them by the West. At least 416 people were killed in the repression of the demonstrations, according to a latest report released by the NGO Iran Human Rights (IHR), based in Norway, while 15,000 were arrested according to the Special Rapporteur of the UN on Iran.
Toomaj Salehi “is in serious danger right now,” relatives of the rapper wrote on his Twitter account on Saturday. “His trial is being held behind closed doors” without any legal representation, they added.
The rapper, according to the same source, is accused of being an “enemy of God” and “corruption on earth”, crimes punishable by capital punishment.
On November 2, the official Irna news agency broadcast a video that it said showed Mr. Salehi blindfolded, saying he “made a mistake”. “Forced confessions”, immediately denounced human rights activists.
Shortly before his arrest, the rapper had given a very critical interview of the regime to the Canadian channel CBC. “You are dealing with a mafia ready to kill the whole nation […] in order to keep his power, his money and his weapons,” he said.
Iranian justice has already handed down six death sentences since the protests began in mid-September, but this number is expected to increase since, according to Amnesty International, at least 21 people are currently on trial for crimes punishable by the death penalty.
According to figures provided by Iranian justice, more than 2,000 people have been charged since the start of the protests.
Iran is the most executed country in the world outside of China, according to human rights groups. At least 314 people were put to death there in 2021 according to the NGO, while the IHR group reports more than 482 executions this year.