Metal duo Confess sentenced to 14 years in prison and 74 lashes in Iran

Confess (Image credit: Confess)

The two members of Iranian metal band Confess have been sentenced to a combined 14 and a half years in prison.

Nikan Khosravi and Arash Ilkhani were arrested in November 2015 and hit with a variety of charges, including blasphemy, writing anti-religious lyrics and promoting music that the state considered to be Satanic in nature. 

The pair managed to avoid the death penalty, but were put in solitary confinement, with Metal Injection reporting they were then bailed for $30,000 each. Khosravi and Ilkhani managed to flee to Turkey and were subsequently granted asylum in Norway.

However, Loudwire report that authorities in Tehran have now handed down their sentence on the pair in their absence.

The website report that Khosravi was sentenced to a total of 12 and a half years in jail along with 74 lashes, while Ilkhani, who was initially sentenced to a total of six years, had his sentence reduced to two.

In light of the news, Confess have decided to release their new track titled Evin – a song named after the Iranian prison where they were held. It will be included on their upcoming album Revenge At All Costs.

In 2016, Classic Rock published an in-depth feature exploring the reasons why Iran and Afghanistan were imprisoning metal artists, with the article also highlighting other parts of the world where musicians were in danger.

Scott Munro
Louder e-commerce editor

Scott has spent more than 30 years in newspapers, magazines and online as an editor, production editor, sub-editor, designer, writer and reviewer. Scott joined our news desk in the summer of 2014 before moving to the e-commerce team in 2020. Scott maintains Louder’s buyer’s guides, scouts out the best deals for music fans and reviews headphones, speakers, books and more. He's written more than 11,000 articles across Louder, Classic Rock, Metal Hammer and Prog and has previous written for publications including IGN, the Sunday Mirror, Daily Record and The Herald, covering everything from daily news and weekly features, to video games, travel and whisky. Scott's favourite bands are Fields Of The Nephilim, The Cure, New Model Army, All About Eve, The Mission, Cocteau Twins, Drab Majesty, Marillion and Rush.