The news about the protests in Iran is getting worse by the day: Because the unrest after the death of Mahsa Amini († 22) has not subsided, the leadership is reacting more and more brutally. For example, the rapper Toomaj Salehi (32) is on the official death list of the regime after he criticized the government around Ebrahim Raisi (61). The accusations against Salehi: “wickedness on earth” and “war against God”. Both carry the death penalty.
“I’m afraid of him,” his uncle Eghbal Eghbali (67) tells Blick. The Iranian lives in Bochum, Germany, to avoid arrest. Because: he himself rebelled against the regime.
Barbaric torture in the cell
Eghbali confirms statements from a close confidant of Salehi that he was tortured in Isfahan prison. A leg was broken and several fingers, the face wounded by blows. He is on hunger strike because of the physical and mental torture. This would have reached her acquaintances who would have been in the same prison, “Stern” reports.
“My sister told me,” Uncle Eghbali says. The agonizing beatings and other things would serve to coerce Salehi’s televised confessions in the interests of the regime. Eghbali says proudly, “My cousin held out and resisted for six weeks.”
“We are dealing with a mafia”
Rapper Salehi was arrested on October 30. Two days after he gave his last interview. “We live in a place of terror,” he told Canadian television channel CBC. “We are dealing with a mafia that is willing to kill the entire nation to keep their power, their money and their guns.”
In detention, Salehi would initially have continued to shout slogans and rhymes against the regime, the television station reported. Apparently, other inmates followed suit. Meanwhile, the security forces have banished Salehi to an isolated cell.
He won the hearts of Iranians with it
Toomaj Salehi is one of the most famous Iranian musicians. “He’s a brave rapper who tried to be the voice of his people,” the uncle says of him. Especially with the song “Hide Yourself” he is said to have won the hearts of millions of Iranians. “In it he criticizes the indifference towards the regime, shows the appalling conditions in Iran and calls for responses.” Eghbali: “He saw a lot of potential in the Iranian people.”
After all, the alternative to the regime has long since entered the minds of all generations, says Eghbali. “They want a democratic system in which religion and state are separate – like in Western countries.”
“Global support needed”
However, Iranian human rights lawyer Mohammad Hossein Aghasi tells the “Stern” that any help will probably come too late. He should have defended the rapper. Instead, Salehi was assigned a lawyer for the regime. According to Aghasi, only international pressure can change the execution.
Eghbal Eghbali says Western countries should insist on the free choice of a lawyer, the establishment of a UN commission to visit political prisoners and the presence of Western lawyers, journalists and representatives of human rights organizations during court hearings. “The revolutionary protest movement needs global support.”