New Zealand imposes travel bans on 40 Iranian officials over protest crackdown

Students at several Iranian universities held a third consecutive day of protests on Monday, chanting against Ali Khamenei. At Amir Kabir, Tehran and Alzahra universities, students set fire to the flag of the Islamic Republic. At some of these universities, including Tehran University, Basij forces attacked students.

The image – a Basij-aligned student climbing up to pull down a stuffed animal – spread quickly online. More than a campus scuffle, it suggested a phrase that began on social media is now being contested in the physical arena of protest and counter-mobilization.

From meme to material symbol

The nickname Rat-Ali gained traction during the June war with Israel, when Khamenei largely disappeared from public view and state media aired only prerecorded video messages. Reports that he had taken shelter in fortified underground facilities during military escalation and later unrest fueled the metaphor.

In Persian, “moush” connotes hiding and evasion. By pairing it with the Supreme Leader’s name, critics flip the state’s image of firm leadership.

On Monday, that inversion took tangible form. The rat was not only an online meme but an object displayed and physically removed.

Political satire often loses force when ignored. Authority can neutralize insult through indifference. The decision by a Basiji student to climb the tree and take down the toy had the opposite effect: it signaled that the symbol was perceived as threatening enough to confront.

Precedent in protest language

Iran’s protest culture has repeatedly transformed ridicule into durable shorthand. After the 2020 US drone strike that killed IRGC Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani, some Iranians referred to him as “cutlet,” a darkly comic reference to the condition of his remains. The term proved difficult to suppress despite official efforts to preserve Soleimani’s image as a national icon.

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However, Moush-Ali carries sharper political implications because it targets the apex of the system. Khamenei’s authority rests not only on constitutional powers but also on cultivated distance – a blend of religious stature and institutional control.

Mockery compresses that distance. A rat hanging from a tree reduces a figure positioned as untouchable into a repeatable visual punchline.

Authoritarian systems rely in part on aura – an impression of inevitability and psychological dominance. When that aura becomes vulnerable to parody, the cost of reaction rises. Suppression can amplify visibility; indifference can appear weak.

The scene at Sharif involved a toy, a tree and a handful of students. Yet the rapid spread of the image suggested a broader recalibration of political language.

Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said failure to reach an agreement between the United States and Iran could lead to the use of force.

“The message is that it is not impossible to reach an agreement that avoids more disruption, more deaths, more instability in the region,” Grossi said in an interview with RTVC Noticias. He added that the goal is to ensure “there are no nuclear weapons in Iran by any other path than violence.”

Grossi said the crisis must be resolved through a deal but warned that uncertainty over Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile increases risks. He said the IAEA has not been able to resume inspections of Iran’s enriched uranium since last year’s 12-day war, adding that while this does not mean nuclear weapons exist, the lack of monitoring “can generate dramatic decisions,” he told RTVC Noticias director William Parra after a visit to Colombia and ahead of talks in Geneva.

Political commentator Sadegh Zibakalam on Wednesday expressed shock at pro-Pahlavi stance voiced by Iran’s university students, saying he never imagined such slogans would be heard on campus.

“As a professor who taught the history of modern Iran’s political developments at university for 30 years, I could not have imagined even in my dreams that a university which, since Dec. 7, 1953, had always chanted against the Pahlavis would, after 82 years, out of anger and hatred, return to the Pahlavis,” wrote the professor and reformist figure on X.

Students at Iran’s major universities have been staging anti-government protests on campuses, calling for regime change and voicing support for exiled Prince Reza Pahlavi.

Iran accused the United States and Israel of running a coordinated disinformation campaign against Tehran, dismissing allegations about its nuclear program, ballistic missiles and the death toll from January protests.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei cited “law of propaganda coined by Nazi Joseph Goebbels,” in a post on X on Wednesday and said, “This is now systematically used by the US administration and the war profiteers encircling it, particularly the genocidal Israeli regime, to serve their sinister disinformation & misinformation campaign against the Nation of Iran.”

“Whatever they're alleging in regards to Iran's nuclear program, Iran's ballistic missiles, and the number of casualties during January's unrest is simply the repetition of 'big lies',” he added.

In early January, shortly after protests that began over economic grievances spread nationwide, authorities moved classes online in what officials described as a seasonal measure but which students widely viewed as an effort to preempt campus mobilization.

Now, with in-person classes resumed, memorial gatherings for those killed in January’s violent crackdown have evolved into open defiance on campuses in Tehran, Mashhad and Isfahan. Some have escalated into stand-offs between protesting students and pro-establishment groups.

In a notable shift, recent rallies have included chants naming Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s last monarch, as “the leader of Iran’s revolution,” and calling for the restoration of monarchy nearly five decades after the 1979 revolution.

On Monday, students at the University of Tehran organized a ceremony for Mohammad Reza Mohammadi Ali, a master’s student in theology. A group known as United Students reported that the Basij student organization sought to appropriate the event, claiming the deceased had supported the government.

Opposing students responded with chants including “This flower has fallen, a gift to the homeland,” “Woman, Life, Freedom,” and “By the blood of our comrades, we stand to the end.”

At Sharif University of Technology, a silent candlelight vigil turned confrontational after university cultural officials broadcast Quran recitations and music over loudspeakers. Students holding photos of the dead protested what they described as an attempt to drown out the gathering.

Videos circulating online show rival groups facing off. Pro-government students chanted support for Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and slogans such as “Allahu Akbar” and “Death to America,” while calling for the expulsion of those they labeled “rioters.”

Opposition chants targeted the Islamic Republic, Khamenei, and institutions such as the Basij and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Symbols have become vivid markers of division. Pro-government students carried the flag of the Islamic Republic and burned U.S. and Israeli flags during demonstrations. Opposition students, by contrast, covertly brought in the pre-revolutionary lion-and-sun flag — replaced after 1979 — and raised it during gatherings this week. On Monday, students at three Tehran universities also set fire to the Islamic Republic flag.

Students at two Tehran universities and one in Isfahan have also called for the restoration of their pre-1979 names, which referenced members of the Pahlavi royal family before being changed after the revolution.

University security offices — and, according to student accounts, plainclothes forces believed to be operating from outside campuses — have been present during several confrontations, at times appearing to side with pro-establishment students.

Students report identification cards being photographed and participants filmed, actions widely interpreted as intimidation. Some universities have allegedly sent text messages barring certain students from campus and warning of possible disciplinary proceedings.

The renewed campus unrest places Iran’s leadership in a delicate position. A forceful intervention risks inflaming tensions and pushing protests beyond university gates. Yet allowing sustained mobilization at institutions long regarded as incubators of political activism could embolden broader opposition.

That dilemma is complicated by a longstanding legal safeguard.

A 2000 law prohibits military, police and security forces from entering university campuses to conduct operations, make arrests or use weapons without formal authorization. The measure was enacted after the July 1999 unrest, when vigilantes and plainclothes security forces stormed dormitories at the University of Tehran, triggering nearly a week of nationwide turmoil.

Despite the law, human rights groups and media outlets have documented repeated instances over the years in which security forces entered campuses without authorization, including during recent protests.