“A number of people in the city of Orumiyeh who engaged in the promotion of satanism through underground music and the production of blasphemous video clips were arrested,” the daily Resalat quoted senior police official Kheibar Tiba as saying.

The socially conservative Islamic Republic said last year it would crack down on “indecent Western-inspired movements” such as rappers, heavy metal musicians and satanists.

'Challenging Islam'
In September 2009 the French news agency Agence France-Presse, AFP, quoted an Iranian police officer as saying that Satanist cults are challenging Islam. They "wear broken-cross and skeleton necklaces and rings, drink alcohol and dance in their ceremonies," deputy police chief Hossein Zolfaghari in Tehran was quoted by Etemad newspaper as saying. He also said that about 50 different Satan-worshiping cults have found their way into the country and that many of them are seeking to turn people against Islam. Some of these groups seek to "attract young people by playing satanic music," he said.

Agence France-Presse mentioned in their article that in 2008 Iranian police arrested 230 people in a raid on a "Satan-worshipping" underground rock concert near Tehran amid a nationwide crackdown on attire and behaviour deemed contrary to Islamic law.

About two third of Iran's 70 million Shiite-majority population are under 30 years old.

In May 2009, a concert in the southern city of Shiraz was raided by an Islamist militia, and 104 people allegedly were arrested by security forces, on the grounds of being 'immoral' and 'devil worshippers'.