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Home Society Music

Violent anti-MEK rhetoric in drill track is a public safety risk

Police duty is to preserve public safety if there is a risk of real-world violence or harm: they must act now to protect Iranian dissidents

Laila Jazayeri by Laila Jazayeri
02-06-2026 07:08
in Music, Opinion, World
Reading Time: 6 mins read
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a logo from Drill Farsi with an image of Tony Mohwaz and a banned Iranian flag

Composite image from YouTube (fair use)

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Serious public safety concerns have been raised by a recently released drill track, Harbu Darbu by Tony Mohraz, a known supporter of Reza Pahlavi. These concerns include its violent language against members of Iran’s main opposition, the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK), as well as separate references to the left, its echoing of Iranian regime rhetoric, its use of SAVAK imagery, and the risks it creates for MEK members, left-wing activists, and other non-monarchist dissidents. Tony Mohraz, who also calls himself 021Kid, was born in Iran as Mohammad Mohraz and came to London in December 2019.

The track includes the explicit words, “Shoot Mojahed” and “We don’t want mullah, neither MEK. Smoke ’em on sight, show no mercy, GANG.” In the same track, Mohraz says, “I’m an Iranian Immortal Guard” and “My gangs are SAVAKI,” directly linking the “gang” language to a militant pro-Pahlavi identity, the “Immortal Guard” supporters around Reza Pahlavi, and SAVAK, the Shah’s notorious secret police, responsible for repression, torture, and executions. He is openly calling on the “SAVAKI gang” to shoot and kill Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) members immediately on sight, without showing them any mercy.

Such rhetoric appears, on the surface, to be anti-regime, but it is explicitly anti-MEK and constitutes a direct call for violence against MEK members.

Active execution threat

At a time when MEK members are being targeted by the Iranian regime, the track raises serious safety concerns with potentially grave consequences. The MEK has long been a prime target of the Iranian regime, including during the mass executions of 1988 and through ongoing executions and extrajudicial killings. Only last month, eight MEK members were executed in Iran. Against this background, the track’s words endorse violence against an already heavily-targeted group and amount to incitement to murder.

The danger of echoing regime rhetoric

The Iranian regime has long treated the MEK as an existential threat, targeting it through decades of disinformation, executions, and assassination campaigns. That is why violent anti-MEK rhetoric outside the regime is so dangerous. It does not stand apart from Tehran’s campaign against the organisation; it feeds into it. By presenting the MEK as a group that should be eliminated, such rhetoric gives the regime further material to justify its own violence, blur accountability, and deflect international condemnation.

How anti-MEK incitement benefits the regime

Promoting violence against the MEK and the ‘left’ undermines the broader struggle for a democratic, pluralistic Iran. It creates divisions among anti-regime forces and helps prolong the regime’s survival. This is precisely why the regime has infiltrated and exploited Pahlavi-aligned circles.

The political weaponisation of drill culture

Drill music is fundamentally built on violent imagery and expressions of absolute dominance over rivals, universally known as ‘opps’. Mahraz projects this inherently aggressive style of music onto the complex landscape of Iranian politics and treats the MEK and the ‘left’ as gang rivals. In doing so, the song turns people who have long struggled for freedom and a democratic republic in Iran into targets of violent incitement.

Exposing the false shield of free speech

Freedom of expression must not be used as a shield for dehumanisation, threats, or calls for violence against a clearly identifiable political movement already targeted by state violence and assassination campaigns.

There are online videos of pro-Pahlavi supporters wearing SAVAK symbols while openly stating that they are gathering information on political opponents. They have marched in the UK and across Europe in uniform-style clothing, calling themselves Reza Pahlavi’s ‘Immortal Guard’, while displaying SAVAK symbols and calling for the return of SAVAK. This is happening at a time when Parviz Sabeti, the former deputy director of SAVAK, is facing a $225mn lawsuit over atrocities and horrific torture committed in prisons during the Shah’s rule.

Promoting a hardline monarchist position while openly calling for violence against the MEK sends a chilling warning to non-monarchist dissidents. For the Iranian diaspora in the UK, Europe, and beyond, it creates a dangerous climate in which anyone who rejects a return to hereditary monarchy can be branded a traitor, a regime sympathiser, or an MEK sympathiser, placing them at risk of real-world political violence.

Immediate action required to protect public safety

The Metropolitan Police has already treated violent rap videos as a public safety issue where they are linked to threats, retaliation, or real-world violence. According to the Met Police’s April 2025 FoI disclosure,YouTube removed 879 drill and rap music videos at the Met’s request between January 2020 and December 2024, because of concerns that the content was linked to violence or carried a risk of real-world harm.

Given its explicit call to kill MEK members, this drill track creates a serious public safety concern. It turns political hostility into a call for physical violence and targeted attacks. The urgency is heightened by the fact that, in February 2026, two pro-Pahlavi monarchists were charged with the first-degree murder of Dr Masoud Massjoodi in Vancouver, Canada. The case shows that extremist political hostility in these circles can translate into lethal real-world violence.

In light of the existing public-safety precedent for removing violent music content, the police must request its immediate removal from YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Spotify, and other online platforms before such dangerous rhetoric further normalises violence against MEK members and increases the risk of targeted attacks against them on British soil.


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Laila Jazayeri

Laila Jazayeri

Laila Jazayeri is a dedicated women's rights advocate and director of the Association of Anglo-Iranian Women in the UK. By profession a psychotherapist and ADHD coach, she tirelessly exposes the misogynistic nature of the Iranian regime and works closely with UK parliamentarians, human rights organisations, NGOs, and the media to shed light on these injustices. Laila collaborates with the Women's Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, aiming to eradicate the oppressive regime's mistreatment of women in Iran. Personally affected by the regime's atrocities, she tragically lost her husband, further fuelling her commitment to seeking justice and freedom for the Iranian people.

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