The International Music Council’s 70th anniversary was marked by the 6th World Forum on Music in Paris last week, focusing on the Five Music Rights. The last day of the conference, coinciding with The International Music Day, the focused was on the First Music Right, the right for all children and adults to express themselves musically in all freedom.

Together with Ian Smith, President of the European Music Council, Jan Lothe Eriksen gave an introduction focusing on the harsh story of Mehdi Rajabian, Iranian composer, musician and founder of the website Barg music, an alternative music distributor in Iran. Barg Music was the main medium broadcasting alternative music in the country and had introduced more than 100 music albums and thousands of single records by Iranian alternative musicians, as well as female singers, to Iranian audiences, before being shut down by Revolutionary Guards in 2013.

Mehdi Rajabian was arrested pursuing illegal musical activities by Iranian security forces on 5 October 2013 in his office and transferred to Ward 2A of Evin Prison, and was sentenced to more than two months in solitary confinement. When Mehdi Rajabian was arrested, he was recording “Research Album of History of Iran narrated by Setar”. His personal studio, all recordings, hard drives of recorded music were confiscated and the project became silent.

Following this came a long story of imprisonment, hunger strike to be given medical treatment, and an international campaign sparked by Freemuse and followed by Amnesty, United Nations Special Rapporteurs on cultural rights, International PEN and many more, causing great international attention and media coverage. More than 20,000 artists from all corners of the world joined the campaign.