Iran moderates sound alarm over lost role as buffer between state, people

Earlier this week, he revealed that digital and physical pre-orders for his debut record, Real, were open on his website—a surprise to many after he had recently complained of new restrictions, including being barred from gyms and concerts.

Hajipour gained international recognition in 2022 with Baraye, the song widely associated with Iran’s Woman, Life, Freedom protest movement and winner of the Grammy for Best Song for Social Change.

His arrest soon after the song went viral, and the pressure that followed, made him one of the most visible cultural figures linked to the unrest, which authorities quashed with deadly force.

The approval of his album by Iran’s culture ministry quickly drew criticism from dissidents who argue that official licenses remain a privilege often withheld as punishment for dissent.

‘Privilege is privilege’

“You’re not the people’s Shervin,” wrote Sheldon, a dissident account with nearly 250,000 followers. “You’re a regime-made figure. If you were anything else, you’d have been eliminated like thousands of artists of this homeland.”

Others framed the license as a symbol of privilege in a politicized system. “Privilege is privilege,” wrote X user Arash Aalam, “whether it’s tiered internet access or permission to distribute an album when others are deprived of such a natural right.”

Hajipour hit back on social media.

“I finally managed to release my album after three years of being banned from working and unemployment,” he wrote. “How does that contradict the collective interests of our people? I don’t want to leave Iran. I just want to work … May I die if I ever betrayed anyone.”

Hajipour has released unlicensed songs in the past couple of years, including Ashghal (“Trash”), which became one of the most-watched Persian music videos of the year with nearly 30 million views in the first 24 hours.

‘Lynching from afar’

The artist’s popularity was apparent in many sympathetic posts on social media.

“I’m angry that Shervin applied for a permit, but I won’t forget his song reached everyone’s ears and created such remarkable emotional unity during the protests,” wrote Mahsa on X, vowing not to let the state “destroy that unity.”

Some had harsher views about his critics, pointing fingers at dissidents outside Iran. “This is not criticism, it’s lynching by the mob,” wrote Tehran-based journalist Hossein Yazdi on X.

“Dirty and cowardly lynching from behind keyboards with fake accounts, by the very ones who sip hundred-dollar coffee in the best places in the world while prescribing do's and don't's to a young artist inside Iran who was brave enough to speak of the people's pain.”

Against permits

The dispute comes amid a broader shift in Iran’s cultural sphere.

Since the widespread protests of 2022, many artists have chosen to work without permission, refusing to submit their creations for government vetting.

Filmmakers have produced entire features inside the country without permits—often defying hijab mandate and other rules—and sent them directly to international festivals.

Musicians, visual artists and writers have similarly turned to unlicensed work, forming a parallel creative economy outside the state’s control.

Around eleven o’clock on a winter Thursday night in Tehran, when smog hangs low and the city braces for yet another morning of inflation, something improbable happens.

People lift their phones and dial into a live call-in program that invites them to do what the state has discouraged for nearly 50 years, speak to one another without fear. In no other broadcast media do Iranians speak so freely.

Conversation, elsewhere, is a habit. In Iran, it is an act of retrieval. The Islamic Republic has regulated public expression so thoroughly that even a modest exchange, an honest memory, an unfiltered admission can feel subversive.

Authoritarian systems seldom fear noise, they fear permeability, the small openings through which private truth seeps back into collective life.

Conversation cannot, on its own, remake a country.

But it can remind people that they still constitute a public, and that a public, once it begins to speak, is difficult to extinguish.

On Thursday nights in Tehran, beneath a sky thick with pollutants and unspoken truths, that public can be heard, quietly but insistently, returning to life.

Each week I begin my program the same way: "What should Iran talk about tonight?" And the phone lines come alive.

Nostalgia

The first caller, a woman in Tehran named Artemis, speaks with the steadiness of someone who has carried a sentence around all day.

We know what we have lost, she begins, political rights, economic stability, clean air, the artists and scientists driven into exile. But we do not talk enough about what survived. Our culture, our sense of who we were.

She identifies as a monarchist, yet her critique is directed at her own camp. When monarchists scream and insult online, she says, they betray the very values they claim to defend, dignity, coexistence.

She pauses. Iran was once a place where different voices lived safely, she claims: we should try to be those voices again. It is a simple thought, but in a country where political language has been battered for decades, simplicity can sound radical.

Then the tone of the program shifts. A man named Ehsan calls from abroad with the urgency of someone carrying unresolved grief.

The time for talk is over, he declares. Forest fires, a collapsing currency, students expelled from school—none of it, he argues, will change until Iranians swear an oath to reclaim their homeland.

His language is harsh, almost martial, yet the emotion beneath it is unmistakably human: grief straining toward agency.

'I was wrong'

Then, a quieter voice enters the line, one woven deeply into Iran’s cultural memory.

Esfandiar Monfaredzadeh, the composer behind the defining soundtracks of pre-revolution Iranian cinema and several anthems that accompanied the uprising of 1979, speaks with a calm that cuts through the evening’s tension.

To many, he embodies the contradictions of that era, an artist who lent his talent to a revolution that promised liberation and delivered something narrower. What he does next is rare for his generation.

"I was wrong," he says. "I hope the generations after me can forgive us."

The confession does not land softly for everyone. A woman named Irandokht calls in, her voice tight with exhaustion. You left, she tells him. We stayed. And we live with what followed.

Her anger is not directed solely at him, it is aimed at the long silence surrounding his generation, decades in which few publicly reckoned with how a movement born in the language of justice hardened into repression.

Monfaredzadeh listens and responds without defensiveness. Under the Shah, he explains, Iranians had social and cultural freedoms, but not political ones.

Under the Islamic Republic, even those limited freedoms contracted. Until political freedom exists for everyone, he says, monarchists, republicans, leftists, Islamists, there can be no future worth building.

Other callers widen the frame. A woman from Karaj admits that during recent protests many workers stayed home out of fear of losing their salaries, leaving young demonstrators exposed.

Another describes an improvised referendum, the clanging of pots and pans from balconies, a city speaking through metal because speech itself had become unsafe.

I close the program the same way each week, Take good care of the person sitting next to you, I say, and sign off the national dialogue.

Then I sit for a moment longer and think to myself, we have a long way to go, yet the possibility of change feels close.

So close, no matter how far.

The controversy erupted after a recent update on social media platform X rendered the location from which users operated visible.

Those whose location was listed as Iran and not a third country, scrambled by a VPN, appeared to have unfettered access.

In Iran, the new feature exposed that thousands of officials, lawmakers, political activists, journalist and even some pro-government artists, had uncensored internet—even during full national shutdowns.

Critics describe internet in Iran as “tiered," with a hierarchy of favored voices given greater freedom via so-called “white SIMs”, or government issued phone cards with carte blanche to navigate the internet.

'Distrust, discrimination'

Communication researcher Saeed Arkanzadeh-Yazdi told the Shafaqna news outlet that the revelations have generated “an unprecedented wave of collective anger,” clearly visible in the online backlash.

“The distrust toward politicians and activists, and the resentment over the discrimination ... is far greater than what we see on social media,” he said, singling out journalists, whose standing in the public eye, he said, was deeply harmed by the affair.

Some journalists defended the use of the privileged SIM cards while condemning limitations imposed on the public.

Reformist columnist Abbas Abdi—a long-time opponent of internet filtering—said he had openly acknowledged his access years ago. But in an article in Etemad daily, he argued that the benefit itself had been misunderstood.

“In fact, this was not a privilege for journalists," Abdi wrote. "They exempted journalists from a punishment from which everyone should have been exempt … If the exemption required some kind of commitment, then the act should be condemned.”

'Soft-war fighters'

Some with White SIMs were even more direct in defending their privilege.

“Unfiltered internet is not a personal privilege," hardline commentator Abdollah Ganji posted on X. "It is a decision by past and present governments to equip the fighters of the soft war.”

Just as the government is obliged to strengthen the armed forces, he wrote, “for example by helping to develop the Revolutionary Guard's missile program," it must also equip “the frontline warriors of the soft, cognitive and hybrid war."

More backlash

Reformist media figure Isa Saharkhiz rebuked Abdi’s defense in a post on Telegram, asking whether journalists should have chosen solidarity with the public.

“Could the correct, principled and law-abiding behavior not have been to self-sanction until the majority of society was freed from these restrictions?” he wrote.

Political activist Zeinab Zaman wrote on X: “Friends with white SIM cards: if X hadn’t introduced this feature, you would have continued silently. Any explanation now only worsens your image. You accepted this discrimination in silence.”

Journalist Mohammad Raei-Fard called the privileged SIM cards “an insult to the people,” in a post on X, arguing the government had turned internet access into yet another class privilege.

Apologies under pressure

Public backlash has pushed some journalists to apologize.

Reporter Somaye Baghi expressed remorse and promised to request that her access be revoked. She revealed that her SIM was unfiltered “a few weeks after the 12-Day War,” but said she now sees the ethical dimension more clearly.

“I benefited from an unequal privilege. I viewed it as a tool for journalism, but now I know it is also a moral issue,” she posted on X.

Baghi stressed that although she neither requested nor gained access through political connections, she had accepted it. “In Iran’s non-transparent system, any special access becomes questionable — and such criticism is legitimate.”

Tehran media marked Parliament Day on Monday not with praise but with pointed attacks on lawmakers and the institution itself.

The centrist Ham Mihan called the Majles an example of “institutional backwardness,” arguing that the body has undergone “too many negative changes” compared even to the first post-revolutionary parliament.

Moderate outlet Khabar Online highlighted what it described as lawmakers’ exclusive perks, even as they fail to advance legislation that addresses worsening economic hardship as the rial plumbed new lows against the dollar this week.

The institution that Iran’s first Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini, once branded “above all else” has seen its role steadily diminished—at times bypassed altogether, such as when Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei tasked the heads of the three branches with drafting the annual budget.

‘Indifferent to public’

Ham Mihan noted that today’s Majles bears little resemblance to the institution defined in the Constitution, accusing lawmakers of corruption and poor judgment for pursuing restrictions on personal freedoms rather than alleviating public distress.

Former lawmaker Mahmoud Abbas Zadeh Meshkini told Khabar Online that MPs enjoy government-funded vehicles and special traffic lanes in Tehran, while many or their relatives sit on the boards of major companies.

He accused lawmakers of ignoring the plight of ordinary Iranians and argued that the Majles is no longer capable of overseeing government performance.

Another former lawmaker, Moineddin Saeedi, said legislators have grown indifferent to public concerns, consumed instead by factional disputes and personal gain.

Addressing the broader infighting, Saeedi said: “The people do not care about these matters and find the constant fight between reformists and conservatives laughable.”

Factional interests

The parliament has been the central platform for attacking Iran’s moderates in the past year, with the administration of Masoud Pezeshkian getting the most heat.

Lawmakers—led by Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who lost the 2024 presidential race to Pezeshkian—have repeatedly summoned ministers, launched probes and used floor debates to chip away at the government’s credibility.

Last week, the establishment daily, Ettela’at, criticized MPs for spending more time attacking the administration and prominent moderates—former Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and former President Hassan Rouhani—than on substantive legislation.

Even the conservative Jomhouri Eslami weighed in against the legislature on Monday, blaming Iran’s Guardian Council for what it described as a biased vetting process that undermines genuine representation.

Many sitting MPs won their seats with under 5 percent of eligible votes in low-turnout elections in March and May 2024.

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.”

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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.

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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.

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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.