Hit Song Criticizing Iran-Iraq War Stokes Controversy in Iran

A scene from pareh sang, youtube (Arabic Website)
A scene from pareh sang, youtube (Arabic Website)
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Hit Song Criticizing Iran-Iraq War Stokes Controversy in Iran

A scene from pareh sang, youtube (Arabic Website)
A scene from pareh sang, youtube (Arabic Website)

Iran’s up-and-coming artist Mehdi Yarrahi is believed to have been banned from performing a few days after releasing his anti-war ‘Pareh Sang’ song.

Yarrahi, an Ahwazi Arab, is known for his highly controversial works and is one of the very few artists who maintained a daringly close take on social developments within the Iranian community.

Etemad daily reported that Yarrahi was barred from publishing any of his works after the culture and media ministry summoned managers from the Iranian music publisher Jame Sabz, which sponsored Pareh Sang’s production.

Criticizing the Iraq-Iran war which spanned over eight years, Yarrahi’s hit song expresses the post-war anguish lived in Arab areas witnessed bloody conflict in southwestern Iran.

For the time being, Jame Sabz Manager Farhad Goi Abadi refused to make any statements involving Yarrahi’s work or being questioned by authorities, however, confirmed he will be meeting soon with culture ministry officials.

The reported dispute, on the other hand, was denied by the Public Relations Department of the Iranian Ministry of Culture and Information which said pop singer Yarrahi was not barred in any way.

“I'm the last martyr of this tribe ... My tribe, which has no bread or water,” Pareh Sang’s powerful lyrics say, echoing Yarrahi’s struggle which he labels a “torn stone.”

“Death has won and once again the mind has died and all our memories are subject to war ... do tell me where we are now and in the name of the war pen. Why have not we had a life yet ?!” the lyrics, sung in Farsi, say.

Hard-line media close to the Revolutionary Guard considered the Pareh Sang’s video clip as an appalling attack on the beliefs and values of the “holy war.”

While ultra-conservatives blasted Yarrahi’s work, other musicians and experts applauded his exceptional knack for balancing traditional and pop culture to deliver a wide-reaching product that resonates with Iranians everywhere.

The singer is also very apt in his social innuendoes and references-- throughout his work, Yarrahi was very shrewd in invoking crises faced by Iran such as sanctions and weather pollution. A majority of his work is dedicated to delivering on the suffering of Arabs living south of Iran, namely Ahwaz.

A year ago, at one of his concerts, he wore a mask to protest the pollution. He participated in recent protests that took place in Ahwaz against the diversion of the Karun River. Citing his unmatched passion for defending the environment, southern locals have dubbed Yarrahi “the son of Karun.”



Harvard Rejects Trump Demands, Gets Hit by $2.3 Billion Funding Freeze 

A student protester stands in front of the statue of John Harvard, the first major benefactor of Harvard College, draped in the Palestinian flag, at an encampment of students protesting against the war in Gaza, at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., April 25, 2024. (AP)
A student protester stands in front of the statue of John Harvard, the first major benefactor of Harvard College, draped in the Palestinian flag, at an encampment of students protesting against the war in Gaza, at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., April 25, 2024. (AP)
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Harvard Rejects Trump Demands, Gets Hit by $2.3 Billion Funding Freeze 

A student protester stands in front of the statue of John Harvard, the first major benefactor of Harvard College, draped in the Palestinian flag, at an encampment of students protesting against the war in Gaza, at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., April 25, 2024. (AP)
A student protester stands in front of the statue of John Harvard, the first major benefactor of Harvard College, draped in the Palestinian flag, at an encampment of students protesting against the war in Gaza, at Harvard University in Cambridge, Mass., April 25, 2024. (AP)

Harvard on Monday rejected numerous demands from the Trump administration that it said would cede control of the school to a conservative government that portrays universities as dangerously leftist. Within hours of Harvard taking its stand, the administration of President Donald Trump announced it was freezing $2.3 billion in federal funding to the school.

The funding freeze comes after the Trump administration said last month it was reviewing $9 billion in federal contracts and grants to Harvard as part of a crackdown on what it says is antisemitism that erupted on college campuses during pro-Palestinian protests in the past 18 months.

On Monday, a Department of Education task force on combating antisemitism accused America's oldest university of having a "troubling entitlement mindset that is endemic in our nation's most prestigious universities and colleges - that federal investment does not come with the responsibility to uphold civil rights laws."

The exchange escalates the high-stakes dispute between the Trump administration and some of the world's richest universities that has raised concerns about speech and academic freedoms.

The administration has frozen hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding for numerous universities, pressing the institutions to make policy changes and citing what it says is a failure to fight antisemitism on campus.

Deportation proceedings have begun against some detained foreign students who took part in pro-Palestinian demonstrations, while visas for hundreds of other students have been canceled.

Harvard President Alan Garber wrote in a public letter on Monday that demands made by the Department of Education last week would allow the federal government "to control the Harvard community" and threaten the school's "values as a private institution devoted to the pursuit, production, and dissemination of knowledge."

"No government - regardless of which party is in power - should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue," Garber wrote.

The issue of antisemitism on campus erupted before Trump took office for his second term, following pro-Palestinian student protests last year at several universities following the 2023 Hamas attack inside Israel and the subsequent Israeli attacks on Gaza.

White House spokesman Harrison Fields said in a statement on Monday that Trump was "working to Make Higher Education Great Again by ending unchecked antisemitism and ensuring federal taxpayer dollars do not fund Harvard's support of dangerous racial discrimination or racially motivated violence."

In a letter on Friday, the education department stated that Harvard had "failed to live up to both the intellectual and civil rights conditions that justify federal investment."

The department demanded that Harvard, work to reduce the influence of faculty, staff and students who are "more committed to activism than scholarship" and have an external panel audit the faculty and students of each department to ensure "viewpoint diversity."

The letter also stated that Harvard, by this August, must only hire faculty and admit students based on merit and cease all preferences based on race, color or national origin. The university must also screen international students "to prevent admitting students hostile to American values" and report to federal immigration authorities foreign students who violate conduct rules.

Last week, a group of Harvard professors sued to block the Trump administration's review of nearly $9 billion in federal contracts and grants awarded to the school.

The Trump administration is reportedly considering forcing fellow Ivy League school Columbia into a consent decree that would legally bind the school to follow federal guidelines in how it combats antisemitism.

Some Columbia professors, like those at Harvard, have sued the federal government in response. The government has suspended $400 million in federal funding and grants to Columbia.

Harvard President Garber said the federal government's demands that it "audit" the viewpoints of its students, faculty and staff to ferret out left-wing thinkers generally opposed to the Trump administration clearly violated the university's First Amendment rights to freedom of speech.

"The University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights," Garber wrote.

He added that while Harvard is taking steps to address antisemitism on campus, "these ends will not be achieved by assertions of power, unmoored from the law, to control teaching and learning at Harvard and to dictate how we operate."

Harvard agreed in January to provide additional protections for Jewish students under a settlement resolving two lawsuits accusing the Ivy League school of becoming a hotbed of antisemitism.

To ease any funding crunch created by any cutoff in federal funding, Harvard is working to borrow $750 million from Wall Street.