Protesting Iranian Singers Threatened With Travel Ban

The Iranian authorities have threatened singers and music producers to be banned from leaving the country if they didn’t release new songs, IranWire reports, in the Islamic Republic’s latest attempt to normalize the situation amid weeks of nationwide anti-government protests.

Sources said that the warning was issued during a meeting at the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance earlier this week.

Singers and music producers who were active before the protests kicked off in September were present at the gathering, along with commanders of the Sarallah unit, a division of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps that is responsible for maintaining security in Tehran Province.

The country has been gripped by protests since the September 16 death of a 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini, in the custody of Tehran’s morality police. She had been arrested for an alleged breach of the country’s strict dress code.

A growing number of Iranian artists have voiced support for the demonstrations, with singers refusing to release new songs or appear in concerts.

Three weeks ago, Culture Minister Mohammad Mehdi Esmaili requested “all artists, especially musicians, to start their activities."

The authorities cracked down hard on the protest movement, which has morphed into one of the most serious challenges to the theocracy installed by the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The security forces have killed more than 500 people and detained over 18,000, human rights activists say.