Iran minus music

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, says that studying and performing music is "not compatible with the highest values of the sacred regime of the Islamic Republic. . . . It's better that our dear youth spend their valuable time in learning science and essential and useful skills and fill their time with sport and healthy recreations instead of music."

The Guardian's Saeed Kamali Dehghan reports that the cleric's aversion to music goes back decades:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/aug/02/iran-supreme-leader-music-islam

ADDENDUM: "[S]trictures limiting musical possibilities have been a favorite form of oppression from the days of the Council of Trent to the Third Reich and the Soviet Union. Ironically the people who dislike music the most are the ones who are most aware of how powerful a force it is," Frank J. Oteri writes at NewMusicBox:

http://www.newmusicbox.org/chatter/chatter.nmbx?id=6513