Toomaj Salehi: A voice of defiance

We are devastated.

At Index we work with and for dissidents every day. And while we always work without fear or favour, some of the people we work become part of the Index family. Over the last year an Iranian rapper has managed to do just that. And this week we have learned that the totalitarian regime that runs Iran has sentenced him to death – his crime, using his voice, his art, to challenge the status quo and defend those whose voices were not as powerful.

In the realm of hip-hop, where words are wielded like weapons and beats serve as battlegrounds for social justice, Toomaj Salehi emerged as a voice of defiance against oppression in Iran. A lyrical maestro and an unwavering advocate for the rights of Iranian women, Toomaj has created music that transcends mere entertainment – it became a lifeline for those silenced by the iron grip of authority.

Last year, we recognised Toomaj with the Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Art Award, a recognition of his unwavering commitment to using his craft as a weapon against injustice. However, we couldn’t celebrate with Toomaj in person, for he was imprisoned for using his voice.

As I write, Toomaj languishes in jail, condemned to endure the darkness of imprisonment for the unfathomable crime of “corruption on earth”. His sentence, however, is not now only a term behind bars (as appalling as that was); as of this week it is now a death sentence. If his appeal fails, it seems all too possible that Toomaj will be murdered by the Iranian regime within a matter of weeks.

Toomaj’s journey as an artist has been one fraught with danger and defiance. Despite facing previous arrests and intimidation tactics, he refused to be muzzled, using his music as a conduit for truth in a landscape dominated by lies. His verses reverberated with the echoes of injustice, shining a spotlight on the abuses perpetrated by the Iranian authorities.

In the wake of the tragic death of Jina “Mahsa” Amini, Toomaj’s resolve only hardened. He lent his voice to the chorus of protest, amplifying the cries for justice that reverberated through the streets. However, his outspokenness proved to be his undoing, as he found himself ensnared by the tendrils of repression.

His arrest was not merely a bureaucratic formality but a violent crackdown on dissent. Toomaj was subjected to the horror of torture until a fake confession was coerced, a desperate attempt to stifle his message of resistance.

The plight of Toomaj Salehi serves as a stark and horrifying reminder of the harsh realities faced by artists in repressive regimes. In Iran, where creativity is stifled and dissent is met with brutality, the act of speaking out becomes an act of defiance in itself. Toomaj’s music, once a beacon of hope for the oppressed, now stands as a testament to the cost of resistance.

In the coming days the team at Index will be doing everything it can to raise awareness of Toomaj’s case. Together we must harness all the tools at our disposal to reverse the unjust death sentence imposed upon him and work tirelessly to secure his release. We need your help to amplify his voice and stand in solidarity with him, for his struggle is not his alone — it is a rallying cry for all those who believe in the power of music, art, and human rights.

And Toomaj now needs our help.

Campaigner for Afghan girls’ education takes the path to freedom

Today, Matiullah Wesa walked out of an Afghan prison. The co-founder of Pen Path, an organisation forging routes to education in Afghanistan, has spent the last seven months behind bars. Only recently has his mother been allowed to visit him.

Until 27 March this year, Wesa was riding a motorbike around Afghanistan, a bookcase and computer built into the mobile classroom, to areas where schools do not exist. He read from books to cohorts of girls, locked out of education. And he campaigned for schools to reopen. All of these activities put him in the spotlight.

On his way home from evening prayer seven months ago, Wesa was arrested. Then his house was raided. For much of his imprisonment, Wesa’s family were not allowed to speak with him. Today, his brother and co-founder of Pen Path, Attaullah Wesa, spoke to Index from Toronto about the news. He too is at risk from his work with Pen Path, and arrived in Canada in September.

“I am so happy. I couldn’t sleep last night, I was waking with Matiullah in my dreams. But I don’t know about [the lack] of sleep, I feel very well,” he said.

“I spoke to him when he came out from the jail, just for two minutes — ‘Hi, how are you, how was the jail?’ He told me, ‘No problem,’” Attaullah Wesa said, able to make light of the situation. Some other family members are now with him, and he will now go for health checks. “He looks in good spirit.”

An hour before his brother’s release, Attaullah Wesa had a phone call from his brother, telling him what was about to happen.

Since Matiullah Wesa was released earlier today, his brother’s phone has rung constantly, with messages of congratulations. Former Afghan president Hamid Karzai called him personally to tell him how happy he was. Further calls came from members of parliament around the world, human rights organisations and the press. The international community, he explained, has put a lot of pressure on the Taliban about his brother’s imprisonment.

Pen Path was established in 2009 to create greater access to education, and make sure all children have access to learning and books. Since the Taliban takeover, this job has become more and more difficult, with access to education for women and girls becoming a priority. During the recent earthquakes near Herat, Pen Path have forged on, speaking with people in affected areas about their needs.

This work has continued this year, but without Matiullah Wesa. Just last week, he was announced as the winner of the campaigning category of the Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Awards. With Wesa behind bars, his brother sent a video message to receive the award, saying that the award was vital in “Letting Matiullah know that he is remembered and won’t be forgotten.”

Baroness Helena Kennedy took to the stage in London to announce Wesa as the winner, echoing the voices of campaigners inside Afghanistan who are calling the current situation a gender apartheid. She said: “It’s very important that we don’t forget Afghanistan.”

With his brother out of prison, Pen Path will continue its work, Attaullah Wesa explains.

“Now we will start in a good spirit, because now the international community knows more about us,” he said. “We will also come with the international community and we will deal some pressure to the Taliban to accept the basic right of girls and women of Afghanistan.”

He ends the call to Index with a message: “For those social activists who are in the prison of the Taliban, they must release them soon.”

2023 Freedom of Expression Award winners announced

An Iranian rapper, an Indian fact-checker and an Afghan with a motorbike classroom. One thing that connects these three is the time they’ve spent, or are still spending, behind bars. The other is that they all took home Freedom of Expression Awards last night. We’d like to spend this article introducing you to these champions of free expression, as well as honouring our Trustee Award winner, who needs no introduction. Who else could it be but Sir Salman Rushdie?

Every year when we gather in London to celebrate these annual awards and the relative safety we feel is in stark contrast to the positions our awards nominees find themselves in. This year was no different.

Toomaj Salehi, a well-known hip-hop artist from Iran, took home the 2023 Arts Award. Even if we’d wanted to bring Salehi to London to receive his award, it would have been impossible. Right now, as you read this, he is in jail for “corruption on earth”, and he’ll stay there for a further five-and-a-half years. Salehi sings about injustice and abuses by the Iranian authorities — even earlier arrests didn’t stop him from standing up to atrocities through his music. After supporting protests after the death of Jina “Mahsa” Amini, Salehi was once again arrested, this time violently, and it’s believed he was tortured into a false confession. Although he is still locked away, his music is not silenced, and you can listen to it here.

Our Campaigning Award winner comes from Afghanistan, the brilliant Matiullah Wesa. Through his organisation Pen Path, Wesa has been protecting education in the country, even more so after the Taliban takeover. Since 2009, he has re-opened over 100 schools closed by the Taliban in remote villages, as well as establishing new ones. He’s given pens and books to hundreds of thousands of children, and set up libraries in rural areas. And he’s set out on a motorbike, using it as a mobile classroom, complete with a computer screen, speakers and bookcase. But in March this year, he was detained by the Taliban and had his house raided. Seven months later there’s no sign of release. His family has not been allowed to visit him.

This year’s Journalism Award winner is Mohammed Zubair. He co-founded the fact-checking platform Alt News, set up to dismantle propaganda networks and debunk fake news. After setting its sights on political fact-checking and amplifying dissidents, the outlet came under pressure from the outside. And it wasn’t long before Zubair himself became a target. He was arrested in June 2022 for a tweet, and bailed. But every time he was released on bail, he was arrested again for something else — a cycle which lasted for almost a month. No doubt a very long time when you’re in and out of prison.

It’s not often that we mention Colin Firth in Index, but today we have good reason. He joined our chair Trevor Phillips on stage last night to present the Trustees Award, which was given to a bastion of free expression, novelist Sir Salman Rushdie. It won’t be news to Index readers that Rushdie has faced appalling threats to his life since publishing The Satanic Verses, the most serious of which was an attempted murder in New York last summer, leaving him blind in one eye. This week, Rushdie announced an upcoming release of a memoir about the attack. Understandably, Rushdie did not attend our event, but he did leave us with a video message. To round up our newsletter this week, we’d like to leave you with a few of his words:

“My connection with Index goes back really a long way…something like 40 years on and off that we have done things together. You know, I can’t avoid saying that the work is more important than ever because it seems like the urge to censor is stronger than ever and doesn’t come only from one direction. It comes from every possible direction, from the young and the old, the left and the right, and needs to be resisted as strongly as ever.”

Shortlists announced for the 2023 Freedom of Expression Awards

For the last 22 years Index on Censorship has been proud to host the annual Freedom of Expression Awards. It’s an opportunity to celebrate the brave artists, journalists and campaigners from around the world who fight for freedom of expression in the most challenging of circumstances. There are some truly incredible nominees for the awards this year, who more than ever, are challenging the repressive regimes they live under to fight for the rights of ordinary people.

2023 has seen the continuation of Russia’s war on Ukraine with its horrific consequences for the people of Ukraine and the severe repression for those speaking out against the war in Russia. The CCP in China continues to repress journalists, particularly those who attempt to uncover the crimes against the Uyghur people, and activists and protesters for women’s rights in Iran and Afghanistan face vicious attacks from the authorities.

The shortlisted candidates for the Arts award are Visual Rebellion, a platform for sharing the work of photographers, filmmakers, and artists documenting the protests in Myanmar; Iranian rapper Toomaj Salehi, who sings about injustice and the abuse of civil society by the authorities, for which he has been imprisoned; and Ukrainians, curator Maria Lanko and artist Pavlo Makov, who have worked to protect Ukrainian art in the face of Russian war crimes.

The shortlisted candidates for the Campaigning award are Matiullah Wesa from Afghanistan who has worked to ensure all children, but especially girls, have access to education and educational materials; Russian student Olesya Krivtsova who has publicly opposed Russia’s war on Ukraine and has fled the country to avoid up to 10 years’ imprisonment; the Xinjiang Victim’s Database, which records the incarceration and persecution of the Uyghur population in Xinjiang province; and the Africa Human Rights Network which works to support and protect human rights defenders across the Great Lakes region of Africa.

And the shortlisted candidates for the Journalism award are Bilan Media, Somalia’s first women-only media organisation and newsroom; Mohammed Zubair, co-founder of the Indian fact-checking platform Alt News which has led to threats after challenging misinformation; and Afghan Mortaza Behboudi, in exile in France, who continues to travel to Afghanistan every month to work with different media outlets to ensure the voices of Afghans are heard.

The Freedom of Expression Awards are a time to remind ourselves of the importance of freedom of expression and to commit ourselves to protecting our own freedom of expression. It is easily lost but hard fought for. We must not forget that.