Iran sentences popular rapper to death for supporting Mahsa Amini protests

"Branch 1 of Isfahan Revolutionary Court... sentenced Toomaj Salehi to death on the charge of corruption on Earth," the singer's lawyer Amir Raisian said, quoted by the reformist Shargh newspaper.

Salehi, 33, was arrested in October 2022 after publicly backing the wave of demonstrations which erupted a month earlier, triggered by the death in custody of 22-year-old Amini, an Iranian Kurd who had been detained over an alleged breach of the Islamic republic's strict dress rules for women.

The court "in an unprecedented move, emphasised its independence and did not implement the Supreme Court's ruling", the lawyer said, adding that "we will certainly appeal against the sentence".