Brave Iranian women continue to fight for basic human rights. Large public protests have ebbed for now but smaller ones continue. 

Last week I wrote about renewed efforts by the morality police in Iran against women who do not comply with hijab laws. Since the death of a 22-year-old college student, Mahsa Amini, in September 2022, protests have erupted and the Woman, Life, Freedom protest movement began in Iran. Women and girls were joined by men as they protested the cruelty and restrictions women face in their everyday lives. Amini was beaten by the morality police for not properly wearing a hijab in public and then arrested. She died in jail from her injuries.

Women go out in public without a hajib and cut their hair in defiance of the laws. These young women danced 

This is Tehran, Iran.

After over 40 years of restrictions, women are declaring enough is enough! They're dancing in public, challenging bans on singing and showing their hair.

Their message? Dancing is not a crime. Women, Life, Freedom. pic.twitter.com/oBzx6CQyvN

— Shurat HaDin - שורת הדין (@ShuratHaDin) April 28, 2024

I hope they are all still alive. 

Demonstrations around the world took place recently in support of an Iranian rapper, Toomaj Salehi. He received the death sentence in the Iranian Revolutionary Court. 

Salehi is a 33-year-old metal shop worker who wrote song lyrics criticizing the Islamic Republic after Amini's death. 

In one video about the 22-year-old woman, Salehi rapped, “Someone’s crime was dancing with her hair in the wind. In other lyrics, the metal shop worker predicted the downfall of the Islamic Republic, rapping, “Your whole past is dark, the government that took the light out of the eyes…We go from the bottom of the pyramid and knock to the top…Forty-four years of your government, this is the year of failure,” according to the AP.  

Salehi, who has been arrested several times, was initially sentenced to six years in prison, but was later released when Iran’s Supreme Court ordered the case back to the lower courts over a flaw in the sentencing.  

While out on bail, he was arrested again in November for reportedly saying he had been tortured after his October 2022 arrest.  

The rapper’s lawyer, Amier Raesian, tweeted “the first branch of Isfahan Revolutionary Court issued a death sentence” for his client and that they would appeal the decision.  

Some high-profile advocates and organizations, including the U.S. government, have spoken out on behalf of Salehi and others. It should be noted that it took President Biden a year to speak out in support of the women's rights movement in Iran. Ironic, given how he touts himself as a big supporter of women in America. 

“We strongly condemn Toomaj Salehi’s death sentence and the five-year sentence for Kurdish-Iranian rapper Sama Yasin,” the United States Office of the Special Envoy for Iran said in a post to X. “These are the latest examples of the regime’s brutal abuse of its own citizens, disregard for human rights, and fear of the democratic change the Iranian people seek.”  

Some at the U.N. spoke out, as did the Recording Academy. 

At the UN, a panel of independent Iran experts said, “Art must be allowed to criticize, to provoke, to push the boundaries in any society.”  

On Friday, the Recording Academy also released a statement that reads in part: 

“The Recording Academy is deeply troubled by the recent news regarding Toomaj Salehi. No artist anywhere should have to fear for their life or livelihood when expressing themselves through their art.”

Useful idiots on American college campuses protest in support of Hamas. Hamas is a good example of what Muslim women are struggling to free themselves from. Those spoiled brats, completely brainwashed by their far-left professors who teach them that Israel is evil, have no understanding of what they are doing. Hamas and terrorists around the world are emboldened by the demonstrations. 

Iranian women are brave and bold. God bless them.