TEHRAN, Iran – Hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has banned all Western music from Iran’s state radio and TV stations, an eerie reminder of the 1979 Islamic revolution when popular music was outlawed as “un-Islamic” under Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
Today, though, the sounds of hip-hop can be heard blaring from car radios in Tehran’s streets, and Eric Clapton’s “Rush” and the Eagles’ “Hotel California” regularly accompany Iranian news broadcasts.
No more. The official IRAN Persian daily reported Monday that Ahmadinejad, as head of the Supreme Cultural Revolutionary Council, ordered the enactment of an October ruling by the council to ban all Western music, including classical music, on state-run broadcast outlets. But Iranians with satellite dishes can get broadcasts originating outside the country.
“Blocking indecent and Western music from the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting is required,” according to a statement on the council’s official Web site.
Music was outlawed by Khomeini soon after the 1979 revolution; Khomeini claimed it was “intoxicating.” Many musicians went abroad and built an Iranian music industry in Los Angeles.
But as revolutionary fervor started to fade, some light classical music was allowed on Iranian radio and television; some public concerts reappeared in the late 1980s. Since his death, pop music has been creeping into Iranian shops.
In the 1990s, particularly during the presidency of reformist Mohammad Khatami starting in 1997, authorities began relaxing restrictions further. These days in Iran, Western music, films and clothing are widely available in Iran. Bootleg videos and DVDs of films banned by the state are widely available on the black market.
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