Ali Arac,,, Öznur Turan and Cihan Ke,,kek are members of the politically active Turkish folk music band Grup Yorum. In this 12-minutes interview they talk about their personal experiences of music censorship in Turkey. The interview was made for http://www.freemuse.org/

Sivan Perwer is arguably the best known Kurdish folk musician, known as ‘The master of piercing and outspoken Middle Eastern songs’. In this interview, recorded in Copenhagen, Denmark, in September 2006, he speaks about ‘the power of music’, the role of the musician in a political context, and about how and why most of his songs have been banned in Turkey. The video was recorded for http://www.freemuse.org

Rabah is a musician and rapper who has produced a 'Music Freedom Day' signature song for Freemuse together with his group MBS and rappers around the world. In this interview he speaks about music censorship in Algeria and about the role of the Algerian musician Matoub Lounes who was assassinated in 1998. Full transciption translated into English on http://www.freemuse.org/sw18987.asp

Ali Aracı, Öznur Turan and Cihan Keşkek are members of the politically active Turkish folk music band Grup Yorum. In this 12-minutes interview they talk about their personal experiences with music censorship in Turkey. See also full transcription on http://www.freemuse.org/sw17081.asp

In this interview the Jordanian singer Ruba Saqr speaks about the impact of music censorship – and in particular: artists' self-censorship – in the Middle East. She connects the music censorship issue with development problems in society in general – in Jordan as well as in the rest of the Middle East. Music played a tremendous role in the 'youth revolution' of the 1960's in the Western world. Musicians, their song lyrics and their interviews, became the 'media' and the agents of change who 'spread the message' and turned into an international phenomena that profoundly changed the Western world and its culture. Considering the way that many young people in the Middle East experience their situation today, why could something similar not take place in the Middle East? Is it because the music is being silenced by producers, radio stations and state security agents? Or is it because the musicians silence themselves? In this interview, Ruba Saqr tells about her personal experiences, and about how the self-censorship situation she experiences among musicians according to her is part of the reason why young people in the Middle East have no media for networking and developing new visions for their future.