Iran International
The sudden closure of the Tehran Design Week exhibition at Tehran University has ignited a storm of reactions—from hardline groups that pushed for its shutdown to students and sympathizers who lamented the decision.
The university closed the exhibition at its Fine Arts Faculty despite thousands queuing to visit each night following a sharply worded protest from the faculty’s Student Basij militia, which accused the event of turning the campus “into a venue for displaying deviance from norms.”
Videos circulating from the event showed female attendees without the mandatory veil, men and women freely mingling and live music performances with political undertones—scenes that angered conservative groups.
Senior cleric Mostafa Rostami, who heads the nationwide body of the Supreme Leader’s representatives to Iranian universities, called the event a “bitter incident.”
“Turning art into anti-culture and non-art is the result of a planned operation to target universities,” he posted on X, suggesting the event was a foreign plot. Authorities, he added, “will not yield one bit” when it comes to preserving Islamic norms.
Conservative media also joined the backlash.
The hardline tabloid Saed News lamented the live music and unveiled visitors in a story headlined, “Tehran University’s Disgrace Outraged Everyone: How Far in Breaking Taboos?”
Mashregh News, aligned with the Revolutionary Guards, accused private brands and designers of using Design Week as a marketing opportunity, relying “heavily on Western visual patterns” and even featuring unveiled women in promotional materials.
Many attendees, meanwhile, expressed disappointment at the event’s abrupt end.
Architect and former lecturer Mona Khatami wrote on X: “I was so happy that an event like this had brought people into the university, but as usual, our joy didn’t last long: today they cancelled it.”
'We are the many’
The University of Tehran initially announced that the exhibition was being stopped “because of unprecedented crowding” and “safety risks linked to the visual installations and electrical equipment.”
But few believed the explanation.
“We expected something to happen all along,” Arshiya, an art student, told Iran International. “Every section of the exhibition … reminded those who have the power to stop such events that we are many and they are few.”
An underground activist group, the Progressive Students of Isfahan University, described Tehran Design Week on X as an expression of “modernism, opposition to the compulsory hijab and gender segregation and youth liberation,” calling it a symbol of resistance to regressive cultural controls.
‘Sad but expected’
One especially contentious element of Design Week was its fashion section, held at private venues, where models and designers presented contemporary clothing including outfits worn without the veil.
Videos from these showcases appear to have played a central role in provoking the conservative backlash, with critics framing the relaxed dress and atmosphere as a direct challenge to state-imposed norms.
A commentary in the moderate outlet Rouydad24 argued that organizers had crossed Tehran University’s cultural “red lines,” predicting that future design exhibitions in similar venues may face increased restrictions.
It also noted that the sight of visitors openly defying hijab rules on the Tehran University campus echoed “a message rooted in the 2022 protests,” in which students played an influential role.
As the commentary put it: “It is clear that the factions that for four decades have spared no effort to silence dissent within the university were never going to remain quiet in the face of such a display.”
Tehran’s unveiling of a towering statue depicting the Roman Emperor Valerian kneeling before pre-Islamic Persian King Shapur I has renewed criticism of the Islamic Republic’s appeal to nationalist sentiment following the June war with Israel.
For over forty years, the theocracy purged ancient Persian history from schoolbooks, replacing it with post-Islamic narratives. But after the 12-day conflict with Israel, officials have turned to the distant pre-Islamic past to rally a divided society.
From murals of ancient kings and soldiers to patriotic songs added to Shi’ite mourning ceremonies performed before Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Tehran now embraces imagery once deemed heretical by its own revolutionary ethos.
'Kneel before Iran' campaign
Tehran’s Revolution (Enghelab) Square was the scene of an unusual spectacle on Friday as officials unveiled a massive bronze statue depicting Roman Emperor Valerian kneeling in submission before Sassanid King Shapur I, commemorating Iran’s victory at the Battle of Edessa (260 AD).
The event was held under the slogan “Kneel before Iran,” part of what authorities describe as a campaign to project “national unity and historical pride” following the June war with Israel.
Tehran Mayor Alireza Zakani, a staunch ultraconservative, said on X: “Enmity with Great Iran can only end in kneeling before this historic nation.”
Municipal official Davood Goodarzi said the installation would be accompanied by visual displays depicting “other victories of Iranians over foreign aggressors,” including the defeat of British forces by local commander Rais-Ali Delvari, Mirza Kuchak Khan’s resistance against Russian troops, and Surena’s triumph over Rome at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BCE.
The goal, Goodarzi said, is “strengthening concepts such as national dignity, social unity, and Iranian identity.”
The statue, he said, would remain temporarily at Revolution Square before being moved to a city gateway “where it will stand as the first emblem of Iran before diplomats and foreign visitors.”
Unveiled women were allowed to attend the unveiling ceremony—an uncommon scene at events organized by Tehran’s ultra-hardline municipality.
The turn to the pre-Islamic past
The sharp reversal also recalls remarks once made by Khamenei. In a 2011 speech, he asserted that “all the great military victories of this nation came after Islam,” dismissing pre-Islamic accounts as “things that are not documented.”
In 1987, he had said that prophets triumphed over kings such as Cyrus and that “nothing remains of these monarchs in history but names remembered with derision.”
Nevertheless, pro-government social media accounts have now gone so far as to circulate posters equating Khamenei himself with Shapur, showing him standing with a staff as Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump kneel before him. The caption reads: “You will kneel before Iran.”
'Hypocrisy'
Pro-government figures have hailed the move as a patriotic success. Conservative political reporter Hossein Saremi posted: “Today’s grand Iranian gathering showed that people and the state share one essence: Iran itself. Nothing can take our homeland away.”
Others, however, called the spectacle “hypocrisy.” Journalist Gholamhossein Pashaei wrote on X: “Every year you close Pasargadae to stop people from celebrating Cyrus Day, yet you unveil Shapur’s statue in Enghelab Square with drums and fireworks during Fatimiyya (mourning period)!”
Dissident commentator Hamid Asafi called the ceremony “a perfect snapshot of the Islamic Republic’s contradictions.”
On Telegram he wrote: “A week ago they closed Cyrus’s tomb out of fear of the crowds, and now they glorify Shapur in the same breath. The Islamic Republic fears living history but poses for selfies with its corpse.”
He added: “They know people no longer respond to rosaries and sermons. That’s why they’ve brought history back to the stage—in a controlled costume. If they can’t erase the past, they’ll try to own it.”
The irony deepened as UNESCO formally recognized Cyrus’s Charter as one of the earliest human-rights documents.
President Masoud Pezeshkian wrote on X: “Iran, the cradle of dialogue, justice, and coexistence, can still inspire peace today.”
Users swiftly replied, questioning how such pride could coexist with a government that blocks access to Cyrus’s tomb each year to those wishing to visit it on his birthday.