Popular rapper sentenced to death after being accused of blasphemy by Iranian court | #rapper | #hiphop | #hacker | #court |

Amir Hossein Maghsoudloo, 37, escaped Iran to Istanbul in 2018 but has since been handed back by Turkish police – now he’s been sentenced to death on blasphemy charges

Pop singer Tataloo has been sentenced to death after being convicted of blasphemy by an Iranian court.

Tataloo – real name Amir Hossein Maghsoudloo – is a hip hop artist distinguished by a mass of tattoo artwork all over his face and body. According to local outlet Etemad, “the supreme court accepted the prosecutor’s objection” to a previous five-year jail term for Maghsoudloo on offences including blasphemy. After escaping Iran to Istanbul in 2018, the 37-year-old rapper was handed back to his home country’s authorities in December 2023 by Turkish police.

The underground singer had also been sentenced to 10 years for promoting “prostitution” and charged with disseminating “propaganda” against the Islamic Republic, while publishing “obscene content”.

According to the Guardian, the sentence is not final and can be appealed.

The artist released his debut album in 2011 and in 2021 became the first Iranian musician to work with giant music conglomerate Universal Music Group.

Throughout his career he has been utilised by conservative Iranian politicians in a bid to reach younger liberal audiences. In 2017 he even staged an awkward interview with Ebrahim Raisi who would later die in a helicopter accident. In 2015 the singer released a song in support of the country’s nuclear programme.

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Iran is known as one the execution capitals of the world, overseeing the deaths of more than 850 people in 2023. The grim year culminated in one particularly gory 10-day period where reportedly one person, on average, was killed every six hours by the country’s regime.

Amnesty International described a “chilling” escalation of the use of the death penalty against the Baluch minority, with most of the convictions drug-related.