Music
Iranian metal band could be executed for their 'Satanic' music
by Jeremy Mersereau
February 11, 2016
Iran's Confess are charged with blasphemy and could face death.
Nikan Siyanor Khosravi and Arash “Chemical” Ilkhani, members of thrash metal group Confess, were arrested last November in their native Iran by the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution on charges ranging from blasphemy, “advertising against the system”, “running an illegal underground band in the Satanic Metal and Rock music style”, and conducting interviews with forbidden foreign radio stations.
The pair, who are 23 and 21 years old respectively, were jailed in alleged solitary confinement in Tehran from November 2015 until February 2016, when they were released on a bail equivalent to $46,000 CAD. If found guilty at their upcoming trial date, they could be facing six months to six years in jail, or – worst case scenario if the blasphemy charge sticks – execution under Iran’s stringent, Sharia-derived blasphemy law.
The news of Confess’s legal crisis comes from a letter sent by an unnamed friend of the band to Metal Nation Radio. It’s not clear what, if anything, the broader metal/music community can do to help Confess, but spreading the word and sharing their music is probably a start.
The next time one of the usual suspects (*cough* Ezra Levant *cough*) wants to shout about an encroaching police state in North America, they should take a moment and remember this story, and be glad we live in a society in which being involved in the heavy metal scene doesn’t result in imprisonment… at least, most of the time.
