Every line of the rapper Toomaj Salehi’s song Rat Hole bristles with defiance and rage. His contempt is directed not only at the regime but at any Iranian who remains silent in the face of government oppression. As he puts it: “Don’t wait for a saviour, nobody’s coming.” Last month he was sentenced to death.
After the song was released in 2021, 12 intelligence agents raided his home in a working-class suburb of Isfahan, central Iran, and arrested him. Aged 30 at the time, with a neck tattoo of a hand holding a microphone, he would have known that to speak out in that way was to risk imprisonment. He was not deterred.
A year later, Salehi was arrested again, this time for supporting the
