Iran International
State media in Iran are portraying the country as calm, even as rights groups and videos emerging from streets point to expanding protests and intensifying repression.
As the tenth day of unrest wraps up, Tehran appears to be pursuing a dual control strategy: widespread arrests of individuals described as riot leaders, alongside intensified news censorship and tighter restrictions on internet access.
The website Asr-e Iran reported on Tuesday that not a single reporter or photographer from non-state outlets is currently permitted to conduct field coverage of demonstrations.
During the early days of the unrest, state media—including the national broadcaster—unexpectedly aired limited and heavily censored coverage of protests.
Some appeared to validate people’s right to protest, signaling a brief opening toward a more conciliatory stance.
Khamenei intervention
That tone shifted sharply after Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s speech on Saturday, in which he rejected any accommodation with those he described as “rioters.”
Since then, official rhetoric has again turned confrontational, even as protests and strikes have continued to spread.
On Monday night, large crowds took to the streets in eastern Tehran, an area traditionally regarded as a conservative stronghold.
On Tuesday, bazaar merchants once again closed their shops and took to surrounding streets in numbers not previously seen in online videos since the protests began.
Footage circulating on social media appears to show a noticeable increase in the number of demonstrators in several other cities as well.
It also points to the spread of strikes to Kurdish regions, where political parties have called on residents to join work stoppages starting Thursday.
‘Enemy conspiracy’
Despite this, official and semi-official outlets have insisted that the unrest is fading.
The Revolutionary Guards-affiliated Fars News Agency claimed on Tuesday that “riotous movements” had declined sharply since Monday night and were limited to a few locations.
“People, despite having grievances about living conditions and high prices, have shown no support for these riots or even street protests,” Fars asserted.
Hossein Shariatmadari, the editor of the hardline Kayhan, which is funded by the office of the Supreme Leader, went further, claiming that a planned “enemy conspiracy” had been neutralized thanks to the “vigilance, faith and devotion” of bazaar merchants and the public.
Feeble administration
The administration of President Masoud Pezeshkian, by contrast, has sought to strike a more restrained tone—though with limited influence over events unfolding on the streets.
On Tuesday, Mehdi Tabatabei, one of the president’s deputies, wrote on X that it was the government’s duty to hear protesters’ voices and respond to their “reasonable” demands, arguing that the line between protest and “riot” lay in avoiding violence.
The administration has also tasked a committee with probing security forces’ attack on a hospital in Ilam where protesters had sought refuge.
Writing in the daily Ham-Mihan, moderate pundit Abbas Abdi warned that officials were mistaken to believe the unrest could simply be “wrapped up” without addressing its underlying causes.
A society protesting for multiple reasons, he wrote, including economic hardship, retains a high potential for renewed unrest even after periods of enforced silence.
One defining feature of the current wave of protests has been its expansion into smaller towns grappling with poverty and unemployment.
Another, more telling—and ignored characteristically by pundits who address Pezeshkian and not Khamenei—is the growing irrelevance of the civilian administration at moments like this, when the confrontation crystalises into protesters against the security apparatus.
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.