Word: underground
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...pictures of London's Underground...
...being harassed by the feared Basij militia. Under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's rule and particularly since the disputed June 12 election, when thousands of angry teens and 20-somethings took to the streets, the religious police have cracked down on this sort of rebellious youth culture, driving it further underground. "These artists are at the same level as those in the West, but they're working under the most incredible pressures," explains an Iranian electro-music producer who is in his 20s. "If they're arrested here, the end of the road is execution." (See pictures of people around...
...into silence; rather, their influence in a country where 2 out of 3 are under the age of 30, with many hungry for Western cultural imports, has perhaps never been greater. In the run-up to the presidential election, many young voters were eagerly trading CD mix tapes featuring underground artists - practically all working under pseudonyms - campaigning for the leading opposition candidate, Mir-Hossein Mousavi...
...Mehdi Karroubi said he handed out "around a thousand" CDs containing hip-hop and rap tracks with pro-democracy messages. A graffiti artist sprayed "Death to [Supreme Leader Ayatullah Ali] Khamenei" - a phrase no one would have dared utter two months ago - on a city bus. And a prominent underground Tehran rock band, Hypernova, now living in exile, created a Web portal, the Freedom Glory Project, to gather support from other Iranian performers for the "green movement." (See a video featuring Hypernova...
...have noplace to perform live music," laments the electro producer. "Under Ahmadinejad, it is absolutely a dictatorship." He says that during Mohammad Khatami's presidency from 1997 to 2005, when Western street culture took hold in Iran and many underground artists got their start, he was able to hold public concerts that hundreds of fans attended. Now, even concerts held at private residences are likely to be interrupted by the religious police. He describes a recent rock party thrown by his friends where some 200 concertgoers were arrested in a late-night sting by the Basij; later, the government issued...