(CelebrityAccess) — Members of the Iranian heavy metal band Arsames have reportedly fled the country after being sentenced to 15 years in prison for playing Satanic music.
Arsames recently posted a video to their official YouTube page, providing details about the nature of their sentence, claiming to be patriotic Iranians and railing against the criminalization of rock music.
“Is it a crime that we are playing metal music!?” the band writes in interstial segments of the video which is also punctuated by band photos set to the backdrop of Arsames’ music. “Is it [a] crime that we are talking about Persian history?! Is it a crime that you think we are into Satanism when we have songs about Cyrus the Great and monotheism!? Is it a crime that we love music and our country?!”
Iran places severe restrictions on artistic expression and artists must be sanctioned by the government before public exhibition of their art. As well, Iran has strict blasphemy laws that constrain speech and free expression in the name of religion.
In a statement to metal news site Loudwire, a rep for Arsames said: “We [were] arrested in 2017 when we were in our studio during rehearsal. They moved us to jail that day and [did] not [tell] our family about where we [were] for a week. Finally after nearly a month later we paid bail to come out of prison and they told us you should not work, release [or sell] your merch until your final court … and do not talk with media! Our Instagram page, official website … banned and they shot down all for a year, but we built a new Instagram again and [started] to be active until few weeks ago [when] the court called us again and they gave us 15 years [in] prison. So we had to escape from Iran.”
At present, the members of the group are at an undisclosed location, Loudwire reported.
