Two Kurdish singers are allegedly to be sentenced for ‘propaganda against the [political] order’, reported Shâr News — a local news agency from the predominantly Kurdish city of Saqqez in western Iran — on 17 November 2008
The musicians Seyyed Ali Hosseini and Mohammad Zarifiyan paid tribute to “a singer associated with a group opposed to the Islamic Republic” at a commemoration in September 2008, during the Ramadan month. According to Shâr News they can expect to be sentenced between three months and one year in prison. Their case was brought to Freemuse's attention by the Danish PhD Fellow Rasmus Christian Elling.
The alleged arrest of rapper and singer Tataloo is debated in online Persian rap forums. Rumours says that Tataloo has received a three-year jail sentence
Two Kurdish singers are to be sentenced for “propaganda against the [political] order”, reported Shâr News from Saqqez in western Iran on 17 November 2008
The death sentence on civil rights activist Yaghub Mehrnahad highlights how many Iranians must live with the risk of execution for expressing their views
Iranian police have been instructed to close rap studios in an official nationwide campaign to stamp out "obscene" rap music, reported Agence France Presse and BBC News
To Iranian artist IO the publishing of his new album is a victory over censorship. He could not have it published in Iran, but now it is available world-wide via the internet
Although the Persian rap, 'Rap-e-Fars', is illegal in Iran it is very popular among Iranian teenagers. An article about the underground Iranian rap scene
Link to an article in which Daniel Pearl describes the status of music in Iran in 2000. He interviews the Iranian pop singer Alireza Assar and composer Fouad Hejazi
The daily pan-Arabic newspaper Ashark al Awsat reports that changes are introduced gradually among the citizens of Iran – despite official bans and censorship.
The internet portal Qantara.de has produced a dossier entitled 'Middle Eastern Musical Worlds'. It includes issues of music bans and censorship in the Islamic world
In a speech in official Friday praying on 11 May 2007 the Imam of Mashhad banned practicing of music and ordered to close all of the music institutes in the holy city
'Half Moon' is a prize-winning feature film which talks of women's right to perform in public, and to participate in the artistic development of a land
Recorded for Freemuse and the Music Freedom Day, the song 'Navai' features the Iranian singer Marjan Vahdat in a musical collaboration with the British guitarist Jason Carter
200 professional musicians, scholars, and composers from 22 countries met at the 3rd Freemuse World Conference on 25-26 November 2006 in Istanbul, Turkey
