Iran’s online media regulator has suspended the platform streaming a hit reality show after a segment showing contestants pelting targets resembling ancient Persian emblems sparked a public backlash, the latest move in a push to rally support via once-taboo nationalism.
The Organization for Regulating Audio-Visual Media in Cyberspace (known as SATRA) said the platform carrying Bazmandeh (Survivor or The Last One) was stopped for posting a video deemed to include “insults to national and patriotic symbols,” and for lacking required licenses, according to statements carried by state media.
SATRA officials added that the show and its distributor had not obtained valid production or release permits.
Coverage of the story across Iranian media described the act as disrespect toward symbols tied to Iran’s pre-Islamic heritage.
Cultural scholars quoted by the official ISNA news agency called the sequence “symbolic violence,” urging tighter editorial standards around heritage imagery and pointing out that entertainment formats typically use neutral targets rather than identity-laden icons.
The debate drew thousands of online comments and highlighted heightened sensitivities around Achaemenid-era motifs such as Persepolis reliefs.
An ISNA article said the show’s producers lacked a current SATRA license and that the platform was taken offline pending legal follow-up. SATRA did not say whether Bazmandeh would be allowed to resume or face additional penalties.
Separate coverage by Rouydad24 detailed the symbols shown and amplified criticism from social media users who argued that converting the Homa and Derafsh Kaviani into “smash targets” trivialized collective identity.
Some posts also faulted presenters Siamak Ansari and Mehran Ghafourian; the report paraphrased producers as saying their intent was to showcase national identity, a rationale that critics rejected.
In recent days some outlets framed the controversy as a test of media ethics and licensing oversight in Iran’s streaming sector.
Alireza Hasanzadeh, anthropologist and associate professor at Iran’s Research Institute of Cultural Heritage and Tourism, told ISNA, “Professional broadcasters follow a clear code of ethics: identity symbols must not be subjected to symbolic violence, insult or defacement... Attacking identity, cultural and national symbols is effectively an attack on the identity of a people and a land.”
Nationalism as tool
Iranian officials have increasingly highlighted pre-Islamic history and iconic figures – once marginalized in official narratives – to promote unity and reclaim legitimacy after the June war with Israel and deepening domestic discontent.
For decades, authorities suppressed many expressions linked to Iran’s ancient heritage, viewing them as rivals to the Islamic Republic’s ideological identity.
Now, however, the same symbols are being invoked to police behavior, discipline artists, and regulate digital platforms, even as critics argue the sudden embrace of nationalism is a performative response to a legitimacy crisis rather than a genuine cultural reorientation.
The move against the reality show comes weeks after Iranian authorities handed a six-month prison sentence to comedian Zeinab Mousavi for a joke about Ferdowsi, the 10th-century poet behind Iran’s national epic, the Shahnameh.
Mousavi, known for her satirical online persona “Empress Kuzcooo,” was convicted over a comedy segment reciting verses from the Shahnameh with irreverent commentary.
The court ordered her to prepare a supervised thesis on Ferdowsi’s role in Iran’s national identity and to conduct at least 120 hours of storytelling sessions for children using Shahnameh material.
The Shahnameh (Book of Kings) by Ferdowsi tells mainly the mythical and to some extent the historical past of the Persian Empire from the creation of the world until the Arab invasion of Persia in the seventh century, which turned the country into a Muslim state.
National symbols 'insulted'
Clips from the Bazmaneh reality competition showed contestants hurling objects at a wall of puzzle tiles decorated with stylized versions of well-known motifs from ancient Iran.
Viewers and local outlets said the designs evoked three icons: the Homa (a mythic bird of fortune), the Derafsh Kaviani (the epic banner of revolt), and a griffin (shir-dal) like those carved at Persepolis.
The imagery was illustrative – patterns inspired by antiquity rather than replicas of any single artifact – but it touched a nerve because these motifs sit at the heart of Iran’s cultural memory.
The Homa – often conflated in everyday speech with the Simurgh – is a legendary bird in Persian lore said to bestow luck or even kingship when its shadow falls on someone.
As a benevolent emblem, it appears in poetry, miniature painting, carpets, and public art, making it a shorthand for good fortune and legitimacy.
The Derafsh Kaviani is the banner raised by Kaveh the Blacksmith in Ferdowsi’s Shahnameh against the tyrant Zahhak. Over centuries it has become a literary symbol of justice, resistance, and popular sovereignty – less a military standard than a moral one.
That association is why many viewers read the scene as an affront to a core tale of Iranian defiance.
The griffin (shir-dal) – a composite lion-eagle – repeats across Achaemenid art, including architectural elements and reliefs at Persepolis.
In plain terms, it works as a guardian motif: the lion for strength, the eagle for vigilance and vision. To many Iranians, it signals royal authority and protective power, so depicting it as a target struck some as trivializing a protective emblem woven into the country’s ancient visual language.
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.
