Evening Echo: Iran bans Western music on state airwaves

George Michael, Eric Clapton and Kenny G will no longer be heard on Iranian airwaves after hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad issued a decree banning Western music from the country’s radio and TV stations. The official IRAN Persian daily reported yesterday that Ahmadinejad, as head of Iran’s Supreme Cultural Revolutionary Council, ordered the enacting of an October ruling by the council for Western songs to be banned. “Blocking indecent and Western music from the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) is required,” according to a statement on the council’s official website. (...) “Supervision of content from films, TV series and their voice-overs is emphasised in order to support spiritual cinema and to eliminate violence,” the council said in a statement on its website explaining its October ruling. Since then, he has jettisoned Iran’s moderation in foreign policy and pursued a purge in the government, replacing pragmatic veterans with former military commanders and inexperienced religious hard-liners. He has also issued stinging criticisms of Israel, called for the Jewish state to be “wiped off the map” and described the Nazi holocaust as a “myth”.