That chilling refrain of artistic repression has intensified, yet again, as Iran has directed its attention and its iron fist toward the country’s most outspoken rappers. In a surprise move that shocked security forces detained the world of music and human rights, Iranian rapper Toomaj Salehi on Thursday, June 19, 2025. It is unclear where he is or what condition he is in.
Salehi, 33, has emerged as an emblematic figure of dissent in Iran, with lyrics that offer no quarter for criticizing the regime. He was released from prison just six months ago after spending a year locked up, and the courts had thrown out all remaining charges, according to reports. This brief respite now looks like it was given and taken away without explanation.
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This isn’t Salehi’s first run-in with the regime’€™s ire. He was first arrested in October 2022, in the throes of national protests over the death, in police custody, of a young woman, Mahsa Amini, which had set off roars of anger across the country. Convicted of “corruption on earth,” a loosely defined but exceedingly ominous charge according to Iranian law, Salehi once narrowly avoided receiving a death sentence before an appellate court acquitted him. That was a close call with execution, one that makes his latest arrest all the more ominous.
This time, there was to be no staying of the sentence; Amir Hossein Maghsoudloo, who goes by the name Tataloo, has been condemned to death. The flamboyant and controversial rapper, who has always been a boundary-pusher, not only musically but also when it comes to social norms, had been found guilty of blasphemy for supposedly “insulting the Prophet Mohammed.” The ruling came after prosecutors had appealed an initial five-year sentence.
The fall of Tataloo is nothing if not dramatic. After all, Calik was anything but a likely backer of Iran’s hardline politics and nuclear dreams. In 2018, he moved to Istanbul, away from danger. But Turkish authorities jailed him last December for visa violations and eventually deported him back to Iran, a decision that likely doomed him.
Alongside the blasphemy charge, Tataloo is being accused on several counts, including promoting prostitution, disseminating propaganda, and publishing obscene material. In all, the court had added over a decade and a half of prison time to him before he was given the death penalty.
This assault against the arts is unfolding in the context of heightening Iran/Israel tensions, which culminated in another military exchange that included direct strikes on June 13. The week after, the U.S. joined the battle under the Trump administration and launched “Operation Hammer” with Israeli forces. The military campaign struck Iran’s nuclear facilities and inflicted hundreds of casualties, offering a blunt reminder of the potential tinderbox that the region has become.
Amid accelerating bombs and regime flexing, it is voices like Salehi’s and Tataloo’s flawed, raw, but undeniably human that are shut up not by criticism but by chains and gallows. In Iran, it seems, rhymes can still be crimes and a crime worth dying for.
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