Death threats to musicians in North-west Pakistan, imprisonment of musicians in Burma, Cameroon and Ethiopia, radio airplay restrictions on music in Somalia, endless court cases in Turkey... If you browse through the news headlines of the last weeks on freemuse.org, you could very well get the impression that musicians are an endangered species.

This is why, once a year, musicians and media get together to advocate freedom of expression for musicians world-wide.

This year, the Nobel a concert and a seminar in Stockholm, Sweden, will highlight the Music Freedom Day. Read more... 


Radio reports and award announcement

Freemuse invites you to take part in the event as well. The Music Freedom Day is an opportunity to take a thorough look at the subject – in many languages, cultures, countries and points of view. This website features several original radio interviews and radio reports which are offered to radio stations in broadcast quality, free of charge.

In 2008. a 15 minutes radio report including interviews with reggae star Tiken Jah Fakoly has been produced specifically for African radio stations that wish to inform their listeners about music censorship on the occasion of the global event. The radio report can be downloaded here.

The annual Freemuse Award will be announced on 3 March during the Music Freedom Day events.

Musicians and journalists are invited to consider directing their activities or programming on 3 March, or the days leading up to it, on the subject of banned music.

On 3 March 2007, which was the first Music Freedom Day, media houses from Canada and USA in the west to Zimbabwe in the south and Pakistan in the east joined the initiative. Journalists based in countries such as India, Lebanon and Zimbabwe went out on their own and interviewed censored musicians as well as censoring radio executives, and it didn't take long before their interviews were quoted in other medias around the world. A Google search showed that the event was mentioned more than 10,000 times on the internet. Artists from all over the world were interviewed by journalists, and several important magazines made special articles.

On 3 March 2008, the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo highlighted Music Freedom Day with a seminar and a concert featuring Kris Kristofferson (USA), Ferhat Tunç (Turkey), Chiwoniso Maraiere (Zimbabwe) and Norway's own world famous Sámi singer, Marie Boine, while in Congo Brazzaville, the cultural organisation Erwill Promo Entertainment marked the day with a seminar and a round table focusing on freedom of musical expression.

Co-ordination and networking
This particular web page on freemuse.org will be continously updated and will become a virtual 'meeting point' for the participating musicians and media people. On this page, we include and continously update a list of all of the various partners who participate in the world-wide Music Freedom Day, as well as a list of the media coverage.

You will also find inspiration and ideas for themes or interviews in your programmes – or what to say to your audience at your concerts near the event on 3 March – below on this page.

And don't forget that this website, freemuse.org, is an excellent resource on the subject for research purposes.

On the occasion of the Music Freedom Day we extend our services to the media and upload free high resolution video and audio clips for use in radio and tv programmes. See examples below. 

Are you a radio producer?
– and would you like to join?

Should you wish to join, you are most welcome to make use of the interviews that we’ve prepared for broadcasters for this purpose.
Below you will find a list of interviews on music censorship in different parts of the world.

For the previous Music Freedom Day, we also produced a list of interviews which are still relevant. From Afghanistan, Belarus (along with six Belarusian songs), China, Cuba, Ivory Coast, Jordan, South Africa, Turkey, and USA, plus a signature song by Iranian singer Marjan Vahdat and guitarist Jason Carter. See the link below.

You may use this material for free as long as you state the source: Freemuse. (On web sites preferably with a clickable link, pointing at www.freemuse.org)


Ideas for themes
If we should suggest some current angles on music censorship they could be:

• Political censorship (e.g. Belarus, Zimbabwe, China)
• Religious censorship and music prohibition (e.g. Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan)
• Corporate censorship ( e.g. USA: Dixie Chicks, and more)
• Women and censorship ( e.g. Iran, Afghanistan, and more)

If you would like to participate, please inform our web editor, , at Freemuse, so we can include your programme, URL and description on this web page.

Freemuse will continously update this page which is dedicated to the project and to its media partners.