The Iranian singer Shervin Hajipour has been sentenced to three years and eight months in prison for his song "Baraye". The regime's judiciary accused him of creating "music against the system".
Iranian singer Shervin Hajipour has been sentenced to three years and eight months in prison. The 26-year-old singer announced on his Instagram page on Friday that he had also been banned from leaving the country for two years. The regime's judiciary accused him of creating "music against the system" and joining forces with "opposing and anti-revolutionary groups".
Hajipour became famous in the fall of 2022 with the song "Baraye", which supported the "Jin, Jiyan, Azadî"(Woman, Life, Freedom) revolution. The lyrics of the song are a musical collage of posts critical of the regime that were posted online as a sign of resistance after the death of Jina Mahsa Amini. They all begin with the word “baraye” - "for" or "because of" in Farsi - and address the various reasons why people in Iran are calling for political and social change. Shortly after the song was released, Hajipour was arrested and forced to apologize. Around a year ago, the song was awarded a Grammy.
In the fall of 2022, the death of Kurdish woman Jina Mahsa Amini triggered the most serious protests in the history of the Islamic Republic to date. The 22-year-old woman from Saqqiz was visiting Tehran when she was arrested by moral guards for allegedly violating the dress code. Shortly afterwards, she died in police custody. According to her family, Amini was forcibly dragged into a police van and taken to a police station, where she collapsed and fell into a coma as a result of further abuse. On September 16, 2022, doctors at a Tehran clinic pronounced Amini dead.
Jina Mahsa Amini's death sparked the nationwide "Jin, Jiyan, Azadî" revolution, in which women were at the forefront. The young generation in particular took to the streets for months against the repressive policies of the Islamist leadership. The state apparatus violently crushed the demonstrations; more than 550 people died and other protesters were executed. In addition, more than 22,000 people were arrested. In December, Jina Mahsa Amini was posthumously awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought by the EU Parliament.
