Fundamentalists can't take a joke. Ever. They want us to blindly obey, parrot everything they do, and believe in their dogmas.

The future belongs to us. I think that art is a force that can change the world.

I believe in freedom, I'm for a world without borders. But that's an ideal. On a practical level, I'm for a secular state where religion only plays a minor role.

I'm a musician; I have to perform. I can't give up. I have to be even more courageous. We know that we have a lot of enemies. Not only in Iran. But that doesn't matter.

I trained to become a professional Koran singer, from the age of 14 until I was 18. This involved learning Arabic harmony, breathing techniques, all of the things that this entails. And, of course, it involved studying the Koran.

Iran is hard to understand. Although it is ruled in an authoritarian manner, it's not a state in which everything is controlled from one center. There are many forces that work in parallel: the military, the intelligence service, the Revolutionary Guard, the clergy and the government. They all share a fear of the nation's youth.

The most important element of democracy, I believe, is the protection of minorities.