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Tehran’s chief of police, Hossein Sajedi-Nia, has revealed the fate of young Iranians who are attracted to what he calls “morally deviant” music.

According to Tehran-Emrouz, an Iranian daily newspaper, he said that young Iranian men and women were arrested last week in a score of raids targeting the capital’s underground rap scene. The rappers – both male and female – had apparently taken over “vacant” buildings in order to create what Iran’s regime has depicted as degenerative, anti-Islamic music. Tehran-Emrouz describes how the police kept the buildings under surveillance after they were informed that “young boys and girls” had been seen with “unusual appearances and musical instruments”.

This will enrage and frighten young Iranians. The most important relationships many of them have are with their neighbours. Small but necessary violations of Iran’s laws require, quite simply, that neighbours keep silent for each other. You either get away with it – or someone squeals.

Across Iran, illicit house parties with smuggled alcohol, large amounts of cannabis, and booming Western music are the norm. Young Iranians believe it is a risk worth taking: “As long as we are careful,” one partygoer told me, “as long as we know who our neighbours are, we can dance to whatever music we want.” She is right. More often than not, the Iranian police have turned a blind eye to what Iranians do in the comfort of their own homes.