Iran International
Toomaj Salehi, a jailed Iranian rapper, has been awarded the 2023 Arts Freedom of Expression Award by Index on Censorship, an organization promoting free expression.
The 33-year-old metalworker from Esfahan, known by his stage name Toomaj, is currently serving a six-year and three-month sentence in Dastgerd Prison in Esfahan Province on charges of "corruption on earth" and "waging war against God." The award will be accepted on his behalf by his London-based cousin, Azadeh Babadi, who operates an account representing Toomaj.
The award is great support for all the people for whom Toomaj has fought, Babadi said in a video message posted on X by Index on Censorship. “Toomaj is still detained so it is our turn now to take the responsibility and do everything in our power to be his voice and push the regime to set him free,” she added.
Index on Censorship presents annual awards to individuals worldwide who have made significant contributions to free expression in the preceding year. Past sponsors of the award include The Guardian, Google, SAGE Publications, and the London law firm Doughty Street Chambers.
Toomaj was violently arrested by the intelligence ministry in Esfahan province during the height of the Woman, Life, Freedom protests on October 30, 2022, for his artistic activities in favor of the anti-government movement. He was reportedly subjected to severe torture while in custody and forced to make televised “confessions” that incriminated him.
Toomaj used his social media influence to encourage protesters not to give up the streets and join strikes to topple the regime, although he had already been arrested once before. He also provided guidance on bypassing internet censorship. Throughout his career, he was never allowed to release his music in Iran or hold live concerts, connecting with his fans solely through online platforms like YouTube.
In one defiant tweet following his arrest, Official Toomaj quoted one of his songs: "We will come to the streets, every day and night, until Iran is freed. The streets are ours; we will take them back from you."
This was the second time Toomaj, a highly popular underground rapper, was arrested for his politically charged songs, such as “Buy a Rat Hole” (2021) in which he vehemently criticized repression, injustice, poverty, and authorities’ corruption and impunity from prosecution. The song harshly condemned the regime and called out its agents and supporters, warning them that retribution for their actions was imminent. "You are a murderer if you cover up murder. To cover up murder you must step in blood,” he sang.
Like many other Iranian musicians, Toomaj was never able to release his songs or perform them publicly due to an unofficial. Iranian musicians, regardless of their genre, must obtain permits to release their music or hold concerts. The permit issuance often depends on the content of the lyrics and the artist's overall activities rather than the genre itself. Rap and rock music are generally frowned upon as Western influences and are not considered suitable for the Iranian public. Furthermore, recording and releasing music categorized as "degenerate Western culture" and "vulgar" on the internet is deemed illegal by the authorities.
The Iranian regime has also targeted other artists and singers whose work has been critical of the regime and explicitly addressed either political or social themes, including rappers Saman Yasin, who was charged with mohrabeh, or “enmity against God,” in November last year and Mehdi Yarrahi, who was arrested on August 28 for a song named Your Veil in support of the opposition to the mandatory veiling rules.
For the past four decades, religious authorities in Iran have prohibited musical instruments from being showcased on state television, though they reluctantly allowed music broadcasts. Female singers are completely banned from publishing their work, and concerts are permitted only for all-female audiences or when female artists perform in choirs.
Following the Peace Nobel awarded to imprisoned human rights defender Narges Mohammadi last week, this marks the second international prize recognizing the efforts of Iranian women and their movement against the clerical regime in Iran.
Last week, government officials condemned Mohammadi's Nobel Peace Prize as a "politically motivated move" and accused Western governments, including Norway, of pursuing "anti-Iranian and interventionist policies."
Just like with Mohammadi’s Nobel prize, none of the major news websites within Iran, including the relatively more independent websites, have reported on the Sakharov Prize being awarded to Amini and the Woman, Life, Freedom movement. The silence is presumably due to an unofficial ban imposed by the authorities.
The laureates for this year were announced by European Parliament President Roberta Metsola in the Strasbourg plenary chamber on Thursday. The Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, named after Russian scientist and dissident Andrei Sakharov, is presented to individuals or groups who have dedicated their lives to defending human rights and freedom of thought.
“The European Parliament proudly stands with the brave and defiant who continue to fight for equality, dignity and freedom in Iran. We stand with those who, even from prison, continue to keep Women, Life and Freedom alive,” Metsola said.
She also emphasized that by selecting Amini and the Woman, Life, Freedom movement as laureates, the European Parliament is "honoring their struggle and continuing to pay tribute to all those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for liberty."
The award ceremony will take place during the plenary sitting in Strasbourg on December 13.
Amini and the movement were nominated by the European People’s Party, Socialists & Democrats, and Renew Europe. Nominated by Identity and Democracy, business magnate Elon Musk was also among the eight other nominees for the prize.
The prize was also awarded jointly to prominent Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh and award winning dissident filmmaker Jafar Panahi in 2012.
The prize was first awarded by the European Parliament in 1988 to anti-apartheid activist and later President of South Africa Nelson Mandela. Nobel Peace Prize recipient and seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan (2003), Cuba’s opposition movement and relatives of jailed dissidents known as Ladies in White and Reporters Without Borders (2005), and the winner of 2014 Nobel Peace Prize Malala Yousafzai (2013) are among other Sakharov laureates.
“Jina my darling, wake up my sweet daughter and behold that your name is being echoed in the entire world now … You have a family as big as the entire people of the world today,” Jina’s mother Mozhgan Eftekhari said in an Instagram story Thursday after the announcement of the award.
Mahsa (Jina) Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish girl from the city of Saqqez in western Iran, was arrested by police in Tehran on September 13, 2022, for allegedly ignoring Iran’s strict veiling laws, and died in a Tehran hospital three days later as a result of a head injury sustained while in custody.
Another young girl, Armita Geravand (16), who similarly fell into a coma after being assaulted by hijab enforcers at Tehran subway on October 1, is still fighting for her life at a military hospital in Tehran.
In both cases, authorities have exerted significant pressure on the victims' families to align with the regime's narrative. They have consistently avoided taking responsibility, instead attributing these incidents to the victims' purported health conditions.
The Tehran-born Beni Sabti, an expert on Iran from the Israeli National Security and Strategy Institute, told Iran International that the Islamic Republic strong-armed the Tehran Jewish community into condemning Israel on its Telegram channel for its efforts to defeat Iran’s ally, Hamas.
“Every conscience of every free human is hurt now because of this news about this hospital that people were killed by an enemy who has no conscience and is very violent, “ wrote the Tehran Jewish community in a reference to Israel as the “enemy.”
The Tehran Jewish community, which serves as an umbrella organization for the country’s estimated 9,000 Jews, blamed the Tuesday bombing of a hospital in Gaza on Israel that resulted in casualties. However, a spokesman for Israel Defense Forces, Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, said the Iran-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terrorist organization was responsible for the explosion at the medical center.
“An analysis of IDF operational systems indicates that a barrage of rockets was fired by PIJ terrorists in Gaza, passing in close proximity to the Al Ahli hospital in Gaza at the time it was hit,” said the IDF.
As more direct evidence emerged, it has now become clear that a Palestinian rocket hit the parking lot of the hospital setting several cars on fire and leaving behind a small crater on the ground. No one really knows the number of casualties, although Palestinians first claimed 300 were killed, and then the number of 500 and even a 1,000 were mentioned.
President Biden agreed with the IDF assessment while visiting the Jewish state on Wednesday. The US government has classified both Hamas and the PIJ as foreign terrorist organizations.
Sabti, who speaks fluent Persian and has extensively documented the clerical regime’s repression of Iranian Jews, said that “There is another war in Israel and they are afraid Muslims will come and attack them. They are afraid. This war is much bigger and dangerous. And they have to be more loyal than the revolutionaries in Iran.”
The Tehran Jewish community also wrote on Telegram: "The conscience of every freedom loving individual considers respect for fellow human beings and protecting innocent lives at hospitals one of the pillars of humanity. But savages and criminals in history have no trace of humanity and conscience in their existence and spill the blood of innocent people."
The text written to reflect the ideological rhetoric of the Iranian regime, went on to say, "Unfortunately, this crime by the fabricated and inauspicious regime has been committed with the support of arrogant powers that have always slaughtered innocent people throughout the history of man. This desperate act will clearly encourage all freedom lovers all over the world to fight the Zionist regime and defend the rights of the Palestinians."
The “arrogant powers” is a phrase referring to the United States.
The Jewish community did not name Israel but instead used the commonly used pejorative phrase invoked by Tehran’s media and rulers -- the Zionist regime -- in its Telegram post. Sabti said by omitting Israel’s, the community showed its conformity with the official jargon of the Islamic Republic.
The Iranian regime's injection of fear and propaganda into the Persian Jewish community is not a new state tactic. The now-defunct totalitarian German Democratic Republic exploited its tiny Jewish community to advance its anti-Israel and antisemitic policies. In 1967, the GDR secured a letter from some German Jews in the East German communist state who lashed out at Israel (and sided with the Arab regimes) for its pre-emptive war to stop the invasion of Arab armies in 1967,
Sabti also provided Iran International with a video of the Iranian Rabbi Yosef Lalezar, who condemned Iran.He is the Rabbi for the Iranian city of Shiraz. Sabti said Lalezar’ diatribe against Israel mirrored the language of the Tehran Jewish community but the Rabbi used the phrase “Zionist regime” that is “responsible for the crime at the hospital.”
He added that the Jewish leadership “can condemn Israel with lighter words” but “They are afraid that the revolutionaries will come and attack them.”
Sabti said a picture of the former IRGC commander Mohsen Rezaee is circulating on social media along with the message that if Israel makes any mistakes and attacks Iran or its allies, the 10,000 Jews in Iran will pay a very heavy price.
The Iran expert said it is fake news and was distributed two years ago, but many Iranians Jews believe the Rezaee story.
Sabti said “There is an expectation that they condemn Israel. They see the threat and it is coming. For them it is real. In 2008 and 2009, when there was another war between Hamas and Israel, a Jewish Iranian told me that some regime supporters went to Jewish shops and said they will take the businesses to avenge what is happening it is Gaza.”
Iran International reported in September that the Tehran Jewish community issued a semi-coded warning to its members not to participate in protests for the one-year anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s murder. The remembrance of Amini coincided with the Jewish New Year on September 16, prompting community leaders to warn Jews to stay off the streets.
Prior to Iran’s Islamic revolution in 1979, Iran’s Jewish population numbered at least 100,000, most of whom fled after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini seized state power.