Censorship, subjective monitoring in cultural affairs, removal of artistic content through legal and illegal means, forced revision and rewriting, imposition of cultural preferences on the content of works, threats and intimidation, and countless other words and lines can be considered as subsets of this word: “censorship”; which is another name for all the lines above.

Literature, has always been the most oppressed and victimized prisoner of this prison. From Naser Khosrow Qobadiani and Masoud Saad Salman, to Ahmad Shamlou and Nima Youshij, and Nasrat Rahmani and the Third Generation, to poets and writers imprisoned in the era of our time, all have tasted the bitter taste of censorship. Some of these writers, like Taghi Arani and Farrokh Yazdi, were killed in the prisons of this censorship, and some others were imprisoned and reached the arena of the February 1979 Revolution. After the establishment of the Islamic Republic, which was the result of the first years until today, neither the smell of republic nor Islam was taken, not only did this censorship continue, but it became more widespread and extensive, with a network of ministries, agencies, and institutions under its control; the Ministry of Islamic Guidance and the Council of Review were another name for the killer of literature.

Despite these hardships, the committed writer has suffered and gone to prison for the sake of society and culture, but has never given in to selling out or remaining silent.

In the second section of this article, it is appropriate to discuss the positive aspects that have occurred in this situation.

We know more or less that many of the world’s creativity has sprouted from limitations. This is especially evident in the Middle East – and particularly in Islamic countries. Although in today’s world, we cannot call any place a haven and no matter where you look, you can hear the sound of protest, but boldly, where is the protest against global warming and the effects of greenhouse gases and working hours in Europe, and where is the protest against the lack of basic citizenship rights and freedom of speech in the Middle East? Therefore, in a place like Iran, the sharpness of the pen against censorship is more prominent and influential. Perhaps the beautiful pen of poets and writers like Bakhtash Abtin, Arash Ganji, Reza Khodadadi, Mehdi Mousavi, Fatemeh Akhtari, and thousands of other writers whose names can be written in a list, is the result of this same atmosphere of security, anxiety, and censorship.

Censorship silences voices but frees minds. A society under censorship is more aware than a free society, and an artist under censorship writes more refined and fearless. The flow of thought has never stopped throughout history and will not stop, and the wall of censorship is always shorter than the power of the truth.

Perhaps to escape from the boredom of reading an article, recounting a personal memory can also be enjoyable.

It was the beginning of 1389 when, with a friend, we went to the Song Licensing Council to follow up on two amendments in the songs I had written for an album. When I saw the file, I couldn’t help but laugh at the foolishness of the censoring crowd. In one part of a song, under the verse “I am filled with your scent”, a red line was drawn and it said: “sexual content”! It should be read as “I am filled with hearing you” and in another song, under the sentence “It was night”, a red line was drawn and it said: “the word night should be removed” and in parentheses it said: “promoting suffocating atmosphere”!

I calmly told my friend: Even the censor knows the atmosphere.

She said to me with a smile: “We are still ahead of Sudan.”

I asked: How?

He said: In Sudan, for packaging goods, they buy newspapers from non-Arabic speaking countries so that people cannot read the newspapers.

The first crime of a writer in Iran is likely to be their affiliation with intellectual and political currents, or worse, their affiliation with “foreign opposition”. This can be proven in revolutionary courts based on a tweet, a post, or even a simple Instagram story. This may not be able to stop the river of thoughts and the mountain of the writer’s pen, but it ruins years of their best days in prison. Yes, the censor knows what to do and of course the writer knows too.

Standing against thought and thinking, and against someone who shares it with others with their pen, is not within the competence of any individual or organization.

Although censorship may bring negative results in the short term, it has always failed in the long term. History has shown us this; the same history that will show the consequences of censorship to future generations.

Winters come and go, but the trees always remain in the garden.