He was dubbed Chris de Burqa when he announced that he planned to become the first western artist to play a gig in Iran since the Islamic revolution in 1979.

But now Chris de Burgh says that he has cancelled all plans to stage a concert there following “what appear to be blatant violations of basic human rights” during the recent protests on the streets of Tehran following the disputed presidential elections.

The singer, known for inoffensive soft-rock ballads such as the Lady in Red, says he is concerned that performing in Iran would now be seen as an endorsement of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s regime.

His manager, Kenny Thompson, said that De Burgh had intended to ask Iran’s cultural ministry for permission to play a concert following the elections, but had now decided against going ahead with his application. “We should have been finalising the details at this stage, but it would be like asking the devil for permission to play in hell at the moment,” Thompson said.

“We can’t deal with a regime that is slaughtering exactly the type of people who are fans of Chris’s music. The people on the streets are the same people he wanted to play for. It’s impossible to contemplate going there in the near future.”

De Burgh was invited to play in Tehran by the Taraneh Sharghi music production company, whose leading act, a pop band called Arian, has recorded a duet with the Irish singer in a mixture of English and Persian.

Arian was the first band to receive a permit to perform in public since the revolution and it gigged in Tehran in 1999. The 11-piece group was also the first to feature male and female performers sharing a stage since the revolution.

Their manager, Mohsen Rajabpour, said last year that he had obtained oral permission for De Burgh to play a series of gigs at the Azadi Indoor Stadium in the capital. But because tensions were high between the west and Iran over Tehran’s refusal to suspend sensitive uranium enrichment operations, the Irish singer chose to wait until after the June elections to proceed with his application to the Ministry of Culture. Had Mir-Hossein Mousavi been elected, he would have led a more reformist government more sympathetic to western music.

De Burgh has described his attempts to play in Tehran as “a complicated game of chess”. Although he has attempted not to be drawn into Iranian politics, he released a statement last week detailing how recent events had filled him with “shock and mounting horror”.

“Many people all over the world have reacted with anger and dismay at what appear to be blatant violations of basic human rights to freedom, health and happiness, and I sincerely hope that there will be a proper and fair resolution to these serious and opposing points of view,” he said.

De Burgh visited Iran for the first time last year. At a press conference in Tehran, he said that his plans to hold concerts in the Islamic Republic sprang purely from a desire to sing for ordinary people. “We are not politically naive,” he said. “I am not here for any political reasons. I am a humanist.”

But he also said that he didn’t get the impression of a “big powerful state body crushing people. There appears to be freedom,” he said.

During his visit he was told that his Tehran concerts would have a potential audience of 1m people. Had De Burgh applied to perform, he would have had to submit his lyrics and music for approval by the cultural ministry, which rules whether works of art are compatible with Islamic values.

Critics of Ahmadinejad’s government claim that the ministry has become increasingly conservative since he was elected in 2005 on a promise to revive Iran’s Islamic revolutionary ideals.

De Burgh would have had to tailor his set for an Iranian audience, omitting some of his most famous material in-cluding Patricia the Stripper and Spanish Train, a song featuring a poker game between a man and the devil for control of his soul.

The singer released his most recent album in April. Footsteps, a collection of new material and cover versions, went to number 4 in the UK charts, De Burgh’s highest chart position for almost 20 years.

Instead of performing before 1m people in Tehran, De Burgh will now have to make do with three “intimate, fully seated” performances at the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin from 31 August to 2 September.

The singer, who has significant fan bases in several European countries, has never been as popular at home, and domestic concerts have been slow sellers. He said in 2004 that he had decided never to perform in Ireland again. “I won’t have the people I love being hurt.”

Official faces jail, page 21 Editorial, page 12

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