Australian Iranians Protest Death Sentence for Dissident Rapper

Almost two weeks after a death sentence handed out to Iranian rapper Toomaj Salehi, the Iranian diaspora took to the streets in Australia on Saturday to protest his death penalty.

Dozens gathered in Perth, Australia in a bid to raise awareness of the artist's imminent execution. Around 70,000 Iranian-born expatriates reside in Australia where the community continues to grow amid rising numbers of Iranians fleeing the regime. 

At a revolutionary court last week, the outspoken artist who has become one of the faces of the 2022 uprising, was sentenced to death for supporting anti-government protests, charges that his lawyer, Amir Raeisian, claims were previously dismissed.

The Iranian diaspora has since protested and demanded his release on four continents, from Australia to Europe and North America.

Salehi's opposition songs became emblematic of the nationwide Woman, Life, Freedom movement, sparked by the death in the custody of Mahsa Jina Amini for the alleged improper wearing of her headscarf in 2022.

Following his sentence, a worldwide outcry has erupted. Politicians, including the US State Department and Australian, Canadian, and French ministers, and organizations, such as the United Nations and Amnesty International, have since condemned his harsh verdict.

Activists and political prisoners, such as Narges Mohammadi, the imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize laureate, have also expressed concern about Salehi's imminent execution.

Mahsa Amini's mother, the icon of the nationwide protests, also condemned the outspoken rapper’s harsh sentence: “Let Toomaj breathe so that his mother and the mothers of my land don't die.”

In the latest attempt on the domestic front, hundreds of Iran-Iraq war veterans and their families appealed to Iran's leaders not to execute Salehi amid Iran's record numbers of executions in the wake of the uprising which has posed the biggest threat to the regime since the founding of the Islamic Republic in 1979.