For two months now, beloved revolutionary rapper Toomaj Salehi has been held incommunicado in Iran’s hellhole torture cells, denied his selected lawyer or family visits, indicted on a capital charge of “Corruption on Earth”—his only crime being his support through his music and social media for the uprising currently shaking Iran and inspiring the world. Other prisoners have reported that he is severely injured from torture.
Finally, on December 29, his family’s selected lawyer, Amir Raesian, announced on Twitter that he and colleague Ms. Roza Etemad Ansari were allowed access to case files and are to be allowed a visit with Toomaj (as yet undetermined when).
Small as this judicial concession may appear, it shows that the Islamic regime can be vulnerable to internal and external pressure. To force them to provide some measure of transparency in the upcoming judicial process, and to actually win Toomaj's freedom, people must step up the campaign to get his name into new spheres and audiences.
To this end, IEC has created a web page "Free Toomaj" Video and Resources (share short URL http://bit.ly/3vm0CFu), which is a starting toolbox for making Toomaj’s biting lyrics and uncompromising stand known to thousands more English speakers.
One of the new resources on the page is a video of Shallagh (Whip) by Toomaj and rapper Justina which has only been available in Farsi audio. Volunteers with IEC translated the lyrics and another added them to a video with footage from the current uprising in Iran.
Promote Toomaj’s videos in social media, email lists, parties! Get the word out to celebrities, rap artists and fans, people with a platform ... and millions of others.
Also, spread the Open Letter to Freedom-Loving People—“Don’t Let Iran's Theocrats Take Fearless Rapper Toomaj Salehi from us” (pdf to print)
As the open letter starts out:
Listen up, radical artists, intellectuals, everyday people but especially rappers, this is your fight.
The music of Toomaj Salehi beats in the hearts of millions in Iran and in the world who hate oppression. Iran’s powers-that-be want to shut him up forever. We the people of the world can’t let this happen. Toomaj has been our uncompromising voice against injustice and for a better world. Now we must be his. And speak loud and clear: Free Toomaj now!
International Emergency Campaign to Free Iran’s Political Prisoners—Now More Than Ever!
Two years ago the International Emergency Campaign to Free Iran’s Political Prisoners Now (IEC) first answered the call from the Burn The Cage, Free The Birds movement in Europe. The great need: to bring before the people, especially in the U.S., the urgency of building a broad, diverse wave of support for Iran’s political prisoners, raising the demand to free them all now.
Critically and uniquely, the IEC calls on people in the U.S. and globally to stand against the Islamic Republic’s brutal repression of the political dissidents in Iran, while also opposing U.S. threats or aggression against Iran.
This stance is expressed in the IEC’s Emergency Appeal to Free Iran’s Political Prisoners, which has been signed by over 4,500 people around the world and published as full-page ads in the New York Review of Books (Summer 2021) and Ms. Magazine (Summer 2022). This has given heart to the prisoners, their loved ones, and millions of Iranians, and made a real contribution to winning their release.
The heroic uprising in Iran has made the International Emergency Campaign and its Emergency Appeal more timely and urgent than ever! The murderous Islamic Republic of Iran has killed more than 500 protesters, imprisoned over 19,000, and is ramping up its executions. Now is the time to amplify and spread the demand that Iran’s political prisoners must be freed now!
Endorse and spread the IEC’s Emergency Appeal, Donate to get it published widely, and encourage others to do likewise.