'Global Music Awards honors Toomaj Salehi, Iranian rapper, with the Heretic Award for Protest/Activist Music for his song Faal [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jpi7d_uQ5Ec with English subtitles].
[...]
Salehi was a vocal member of the protests following the death of Mahsa Amini, a woman killed by “morality police” after not wearing a hijab properly. Above participating in the protests, Salehi helped to organize, calling for demonstrations and spreading the message. For this and the themes in his music, Salehi was arrested for crimes against the government such as “corruption on Earth,” which carries the death penalty, “propagandistic activity,” “cooperation with hostile governments,” and “forming illegal groups with the intention of creating insecurity in the country,” among others.
[...]
We can all hope to aspire to the bravery and resolute will of Toomaj Salehi.' https://www.globalmusicawards.com/Heretic.html
After a previous jailing for standing up for humanity, Toomaj immediately released another rap https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAR2Uo-vmgY promising to not stop protesting for freedom even if it means death... and was arrested.
If we don't stand up and protest for those risking their lives for us like this, we will lose our freedom and then our lives.
Toomaj's rap against State-murder is now unavailable on the publishing location YouTube, so you get to see my copy instead, with English subtitiles:
Some brave person played the music of Toomaj Salehi at loud volume to the city neighbors, according to Free Trade Union of Iran this Thursday, in the same Iran which regime's system sentenced the rapper to being State-murdered for standing for freedom and justice, for example through those lyrics.
A message of revolutionary support from a girls' school in Saneh/Sine/Sanandaj of Iran-held part of Kurdistan, in support of Toomaj Salehi, declared righteous for freedom.
One of the many excellent protest-raps by Toomaj Salehi was in support of the countrywide major protest wave against starvation conditions for the teachers in Iran two protest-waves ago. Protests which were crushed with extreme brutality and jailings, for not wanting to starve while teaching the children.
The teachers' union has issued many very long and very angry statements after the regime's courts-system sentenced Toomaj to be State murdered, for example pointing out that the ruling contradicts previous ruling, norms and is in spite of Toomaj having kept "clean" lyrics so the sentencing to be killed for "corruption on earth" can not be legitimate.
Here is a bit that I decided was representative (through a rough translation):
───
[...]
The minimum expected from others who have never protested at all, neither in their intellectual position nor in their works of art after the death sentence of Toomaj Salehi, is to protest against this verdict, and if they do not perform this minimum, then they consent. One should ask, which people are the people they love and sing about, and in which land do they live? [...]
───
Here's Toomaj's rap from back then dedicated to the protesting teachers, with English subtitles:
Protest against the sentence to be State-murdered (death "penalty") issued against rapper Toomaj Salehi this week by the Iran-theocracy's courts-system for standing with starving teachers, with oppressed women, with ethnically persecuted and... against the death "penalty",
in particular but also to "Free All Political Prisoners in Iran" in general.
In Frankfurt, Germany, today.
There were several others worldwide too, of varying sizes.
Contact your local Kurdish and/or Iranian refugees' cultural associations to find your closest next one!
Amjad Amini, the father of Jîna/Mahsa Amini whose killing by the Iran-theocracy's brutal agents of sexism imposition sparked countrywide uprisings with worldwide solidarity, has issued a statement on the courts-system sentencing the rapper Toomaj to be State-murdered, according to the Free Trade Union of Iran.
A rough translation:
───
The news Toomaj's death sentence shook the hearts of all the people of Iran. Toomaj is a young man who with the support of his nation is in the hearts of each and every one of us.
Do not kill Toomaj; do not reinflict the people's wounds.
The people of Iran and the world still haven't forgotten the death of Mahsa.
───
Another long statement via the teachers' central union in Iran (Coord. Council of Iranian Teachers' Trade Assoc's) of condemnation of the sentencing to be State-murdered issued against the rapper Toomaj Salehi this week, this time from the teachers' union local in Bushehr on the south coast.
It's so nice, that I cried a bit while making fragments of it into English:
────
For Toomaj who is the honor of art in the autumn of honor
[...]
Toomaj is a child of his time, where he does not allow silence in the face of injustice and discrimination, poverty and misery so cries out for justice.
He accompanies the oppressed classes of the rulers, and the only flag he holds is to fight against injustice, and he is conscious and aware enough that he knows where to be placed in the equation so as not to be corrupted. He considers everyone under his flag and he himself is the flag bearer of the oppressed people.
All freedom-seeking people in Iran and the world are saddened and enraged by the issuing of an immature and arbitrary verdict that does not conform to any legal and moral criteria, in a way that words cannot express.
[...]
Today, students must as their teachers about Toomaj, and it is important for teachers not to sacrifice honor for expediency and to tell about Toomaj's purity and courage.
────
The teachers' union in Mazandaran, northern coast of Iran, joined the many other union locals by also issuing a condemnation of the sentencing for the human rights protest-rapper Toomaj Salehi to be State-murdered (death "penalty").
This one, has poetry (reservations for my mangling it into something similar to English).
─────
Greetings dear fellow citizens!!
If freedom sings a hymn
small,
like a bird's throat.
No collapsed barrier remains anywhere.
It took many years to find out,
that every ruin is a sign of human absence
which is the presence of human beings.
Tomaj Salehi
This ruling,
like a wound.
All dark.
Unreal.
Like a wound,
all dark.
A dry, throbbing pain.
Shout.
Their eyes are wide open.
Hateful,
from self-aggrandizement.
[...]
We, the teachers of the Teacher' Union of Mazandaran are in harmony with all the teachers and freethinkers of the country and demand his release, Toomaj must be released. Not only Toomaj but all those who are in prison should be released.
[...]
Is it a crime to rap?
Is it a crime to protest?
Or...
[...]
If so, order that no one read and no one write, and the newspapers be suspended and the podiums be barred.
The problem is somewhere else!!! And society is worried about its future and the judgment of future generations.
Note that slightly different spellings are used by ANF and this is normal and fine in the region, due to transliteration to Latin script (which is the characters used to write in e.g. English) from Arabic-based scripts like Persian and Sorani scripts.
I use the spellings that the persons themselves have used.
Freedom revolutionaries in Isfahan, central Iran, posted flyers and posters demanding freedom for protest rapper Toomaj Salehi, sentenced last week to be State-murdered for "corruption on earth" (=excellent lyrics against regime-corruption, teachers' starvation, death penalties, for feminism, etc) and call for unity in solidarity against the corrupt regime, etc.
@moeria I'm in general disinclined towards distributing petitions for mass-signing, because I think there is a risk that people after having signed may feel like "well, with that I've done my part so I don't have to bother with that issue anymore" while the rulers just ignore such petitions anyway, so I favor just mass-voicing of and building public opinions in demos, social media posts and such.
I'm not saying you're wrong, just saying why I as a general rule strongly tend to not distribute those.
My best wishes for your success though, of course! ;-)
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