CNN, Berlin

Saman Yasin thought he was leaving prison. It was 5 a.m. and the guards had just told him to pack up his belongings. But the next thing he knew, he was blindfolded with a noose around his neck.

“I was under that noose for about 15 minutes, I think,” the Iranian-Kurdish rapper told CNN in an exclusive interview, as he recounted being subjected to a mock execution – allegedly at the hands of the Iranian regime.

“I could tell that they had brought in a cleric, and he was reciting the Quran over my head… and he kept telling me ‘Repent, so that you go to heaven.’”

Yasin is now in Berlin after making a perilous escape from Iran. He spoke to CNN exclusively about his plight, and how he says his jailers used torture trying to force him to confess to crimes he says he did not commit.

Yasin spent two years in Iran’s jails for his involvement in the “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests in 2022, during which he joined street demonstrations and recorded anti-regime songs.

The months-long uprising was sparked by the death of 22-year-old Iranian-Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini in September that year after she was arrested for allegedly not observing Iran’s mandatory hijab law.

Protesters were met with brutal force, with more than 500 people killed in the crackdown since, according to a United Nations report, citing “credible reports” that at least 49 women and 68 children were among them. CNN cannot independently verify the numbers of people killed or arrested, as Iran has not given precise data.

Yasin, whose legal name is Saman Sayedi, was arrested in October 2022 and is among many artists who were prosecuted in connection with the movement.

He was initially sentenced to death after being charged with the Islamic Republic’s crime of “waging war against God” by pulling out a gun during an anti-government protest, firing three bullets into the air, and “gathering and colluding with the intention to carry out a crime against national security,” according to the Iranian judiciary’s Mizan news agency. Yasin denies the charges.

Both Amnesty International and the UN’s Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran say that 10 men have been executed in relation to the insurrection sparked by Amini’s death.

Yasin was one of dozens of protesters who appeared in what rights groups described as sham trials based on forced confessions extracted under torture.

Iran’s Supreme Court later overturned Yasin’s death sentence on appeal, and his sentence was eventually set at five years. In the summer of 2023, the artist managed to release an audio message from prison, shared by a Kurdish rights organization, in which he first alleged being abused by the authorities as they attempted to extract a confession.

Now, he is able to describe his ordeal in far greater detail as he recovers in Germany, and earlier this month testified before a UN human rights commission in Geneva, Switzerland.

“Mentally, I am completely shattered, but I am slowly learning to cope with it,” the 29-year-old artist told CNN, speaking at a Berlin music studio that has invited him to record for free. While he tried to break into a smile as he arrived, he was visibly anxious.

“Physically, the torture I endured has changed me tremendously – there are still lasting effects. I developed a lot of trauma after prison,” he said. The words “Nothing can stop me” are tattooed in English on one of his wrists.

CNN reached out to the Iranian government’s permanent mission to the United Nations for comment regarding Yasin’s allegations of torture and abuse while in detention. The mission acknowledged the request but has yet to comment >>>