Iran: Complaint to the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention in response to the ongoing judicial persecution of Toomaj Salehi

24 Jul 24 | Iran, Middle East and North Africa, News and features, Press Releases

Doughty Street Chambers, Index on Censorship and Human Rights Foundation jointly submitted a complaint to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD) regarding the ongoing detention and mistreatment of Iranian rapper, Toomaj Salehi. The complaint was submitted on behalf of Mr Salehi’s family.

The complaint raises the Iranian government’s failure to comply with its international legal obligations in its treatment of Mr Salehi. Mr Salehi was first detained for his art in October 2022, and has since been repeatedly arrested on overlapping and shifting charges. During his time in custody, Mr Salehi has endured: physical torture that left him with a broken arm and leg and a fractured rib, amongst other injuries; nearly 300 days’ incommunicado detention without access to his family or legal representatives; significant delays in charges being communicated to Mr Salehi; significant restrictions on his lawyers’ access to documentation related to his charges; and failure to comply with basic due process requirements in his repeated arrests. Mr Salehi was briefly released on bail in November 2023, but was rearrested only days later and prevented from accessing medical treatment for injuries suffered in prison.

Mr Salehi’s treatment amounts to judicial harassment. In April 2024, he was sentenced to death for alleged crimes including “corruption on earth,” which arose from him using his music and his voice to support Iranian women following the death of Mahsa Amini while in custody of Iran’s morality police. Mr Salehi’s death sentence was overturned by Iran’s Supreme Court on 22 June 2024, on the grounds that it was contrary to Iranian law and excessive.

However, Mr Salehi remains in custody. His case is now before Branch 5 of the Revolutionary Court in Isfahan, with the guidance that the court cannot reassert the death sentence or impose a sentence longer than six years’ imprisonment. Since his case was returned to that Court, Iranian authorities have announced that two new cases had been filed against him: (i) propaganda against the regime and incitement of the public to murder and violence, which has been referred to the Revolutionary Court, and (ii) insulting sacred values and spreading falsehoods, which has been sent to the Criminal Court nr. II. Both cases appear to arise from Mr Salehi’s rap songs and his calls for greater freedoms for Iranian people.

Iran frequently uses arbitrary detention, torture, and executions to silence dissent. We stand by what we said on 22 June 2024: any further period of imprisonment would be a grave injustice. Mr Salehi has done nothing other than to call for his, and other Iranians’, fundamental rights to be respected. He must be free to continue using his voice, and to seek the medical care he needs following his imprisonment.

Mr Salehi’s cousin, Arezou Eghbali Babadi said:

Despite the overturning of Toomaj’s death sentence, authorities aim to keep him imprisoned long-term. They often use cruel tactics, such as re-accusing prisoners of baseless charges to break them mentally and instil fear in others seeking freedom. These actions are part of an ongoing strategy of targeting the innocent lives of all Iranians fighting for democracy and justice. All accusations against Toomaj are baseless, and he must be freed immediately.

Toomaj’s friend and manager of his social media accounts, Negin Niknaam said:

Fabricating cases and making baseless charges against Toomaj Salehi, even though he has been imprisoned for over 20 months, has only one meaning: Since the Islamic Republic was unable to execute him following global outrage, it is now attempting to keep him in prison or pressuring him into silence. This is not an individual act of suppression, but systematic suppression aimed at silencing and isolating dissidents. With each passing day, Toomaj’s life is being destroyed behind bars. The Iranian regime must be held accountable for the violence it commits against dissidents. They must put an end to this psychological torture inflicted on Toomaj and his loved ones. He must be freed.

Jemimah Steinfeld, CEO of Index on Censorship, said:

The ongoing persecution of Toomaj Salehi is a stain on Iran. These new charges and the ill treatment he has received are an affront to basic human rights. Iran now has a new president, a man who has been positioned as a “moderate”. We implore him to free Toomaj Salehi and indeed all others wrongfully imprisoned for exercising their free speech rights. In the meantime, our thoughts are with him and his family – they have been through enough and we can only hope this extremely traumatic period will come to an end soon.  

Claudia Bennett, a legal and programs officer, Human Rights Foundation said:

Salehi is serving sentence after sentence with no end in sight. The Iranian regime knows the impact he has on the Iranian people and is willing to do whatever it takes to keep him in detention. The countless charges against Salehi show that they will go to extreme lengths to squash dissent. But enough is enough. Art is a human right, and supporting gender equality is not a crime.

Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC, international counsel for Mr Salehi’s family, Index on Censorship, and the Human Rights Foundation said:

Toomaj Salehi is a brave and brilliant artist, who uses his words and his music to stand up to the Iranian authorities’ abuses. The years of torture, imprisonment, and judicial harassment that he has endured have been the result of peaceful actions that have brought hope and inspiration to people in Iran and around the world – and him exercising his right to freedom of expression. 

 When the death sentence was overturned the international community celebrated. But now it is vital that the international community does not look away whilst the Iranian authorities continue to flagrantly violate Mr Salehi’s rights. The authorities are abusing judicial procedures to attempt to silence him and keep him locked away. Mr Salehi’s continuing detention is arbitrary and unlawful. He should be immediately and unconditionally released. 

              *ENDS*

 NOTES TO EDITORS

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Bahrain continues to use arbitrary detention as a weapon to silence critics

03 Jun 16 | Bahrain, Middle East and North Africa, mobile, News and features


Bahraini authorities this week released opposition activist Zainab Al-Khawaja, who had been imprisoned with her infant son since March. She had been convicted of insulting the Bahraini king after she ripped up a picture of him.

Al-Khawaja may now be out of prison — though she could be re-arrested at any time — but her father, Abdulhadi Al-Khawaja, is one of over 3,500 prisoners of conscience who remain in Bahrain’s jails. According to research by World Prison Brief, Bahrain has the highest number of prisoners per capita in the Middle East, with 301 people in jail per 100,000 people of its 1.3 million population (followed by Israel at 256).

Arbitrary detention is the imprisonment of a person without proper evidence that they committed a crime or a case in which there has been no proper due process. Last year, the Liberties and Human Rights Department (LHRD) of Al-Wefaq National Islamic Society recorded a total of 1,765 arrests by security services for reasons related to the opposition political movement, including the arrests of 120 children and five women.

The total number of arbitrary arrests last year was up on 2014 (1,765) but down on 2013 (2,192), 2012 (2,221) and 2011 (2,929).

The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, a UN body consisting of five experts, has repeatedly concluded that Bahrain has violated several international standards of a fair trial. In September of last year, the group found the detention of the secretary general of Al-Wefaq National Islamic Society, Sheikh Ali Al-Salman — this month sentenced to nine years imprisonment — to be arbitrary and “falls under category II and III of the Working Group’s categories of arbitrary detention”.

The five categories of arbitrary deprivation of liberty, according to the UN group are: when it is clearly impossible to invoke any legal basis justifying the deprivation of liberty (I); when the deprivation of liberty results from the exercise of the rights or freedoms (II); when the total or partial non-observance of the international norms (III); when asylum seekers, immigrants or refugees are subjected to prolonged administrative custody without the possibility of administrative or judicial review or remedy (VI); and when the deprivation of liberty constitutes a violation of international laws for reasons of discrimination (V).

In 2013, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found the imprisonment of Index on Censorship’s Freedom of Expression Awards 2016 judge Nabeel Rajab (since pardoned) to be arbitrary, and, along with Index, called for his release.

Last year’s arbitrary arrests of prisoners of conscience in Bahrain included Mohammed Mahdi Alekri, a member of Al-Wefaq’s advisory board who was arrested on 4 January 2015 by security forces during a demonstration against the arrest of Al-Salman.

Also among those arrested was Sayed Sa’eed Isa, a member of The Martyrs Associate and father to Sayed Hashim Saeed, the 15-year-old boy killed during the security crackdown on demonstrations in Sitra late 2011.

The Bahraini authorities have continued to use arbitrary detention to silence political opponents and opposition supporters.