Nazanin Boniadi

Toomaj Salehi, an Iranian rapper, launched his song “No to Executions,” to protest the death penalty. He had previously been sentenced to death for his artistic expression and protest music, but his death sentence was overturned following international outcry, and he was subsequently released from prison. Salehi portrays two opposing perspectives in this song: that of a protester calling for an end to executions and that of a government official defending its use. The song is being shared at a time when politically motivated death sentences and executions in Iran have escalated following the January 2026 protests, raising growing concerns over the Islamic Republic’s use of capital punishment to suppress dissent and punish protesters. توماج صالحی، رپر معترض ایرانی، این قطعه رپ را به نام «نه به اعدام» در مخالفت با مجازات اعدام اجرا کرد. او پیش‌تر به دلیل فعالیت‌های هنری و ترانه‌های اعتراضی خود به اعدام محکوم شده بود، اما حکم اعدامش پس از واکنش‌های بین‌المللی لغو شد و از زندان آزاد شد. او در این اجرای اعتراضی، دو دیدگاه متضاد را به تصویر می‌کشد: صدای معترضی که خواستار پایان دادن به اعدام‌هاست و صدای نماینده حکومتی که از این مجازات دفاع می‌کند. این اجرا در شرایطی منتشر می‌شود که پس از اعتراضات دی‌ماه ۱۴۰۴، صدور و اجرای احکام اعدام در ایران شدت گرفته و نگرانی‌ها درباره استفاده جمهوری اسلامی از مجازات مرگ برای سرکوب مخالفان و معترضان افزایش یافته است. #NotoExecutions

Four years since Mahsa Jina Amini was killed in state custody, Iran has increasingly become a society of grieving families. From Jina and the lives stolen during the ‘Woman Life Freedom’ uprising to the thousands massacred in January 2026, every atrocity has widened the circle of those demanding justice. For every life the Islamic Republic takes, it leaves behind families, friends and communities who will not forget. Every atrocity fuels the very movement it seeks to extinguish. The memory of Jina, Nika, Sarina, Kian, Mohsen, Majidreza and countless others lives on in a new generation determined to carry the struggle for freedom forward.

Four years have passed since the death of Jina Mahsa Amini; however, Iran after September 16, 2022, was never the same Iran as the minute before her death. While the regime imposed a heavy cost for protest and disobedience, it failed to push society backward. Despite repression and pressure, women have not retreated from their right to choose their attire, expanding the boundaries of civil disobedience into even more areas of everyday life. « Woman, Life, Freedom » has not yet changed discriminatory laws, but it has transformed a society that is no longer simply willing to accept those discriminations.