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.
Under a new directive titled “We Defend Our Iran,” the ministry ordered classes from elementary to high school to praise the actions of the country's leadership, military and people.
The new educational materials reviewed by Iran International were distributed to schools and made available online earlier this month.
The program aims to cultivate patriotic virtue, according to a directive signed by Education Minister Alireza Kazemi and circulated to provincial departments.
The initiative was “a tribute to the miraculous endurance of the Iranian nation during the 12-day imposed war,” he wrote.
New study materials, Kazemi added, seek to “strengthen national dignity, unity and deterrence,” and to raise students who can “face social and political challenges responsibly and wisely.”
Battle of narratives
As Iran-US nuclear talks appeared to falter, Israel launched a surprise military attack on its Mideast arch-foe on June 13.
The strikes killed senior nuclear scientists along with hundreds of military personnel and civilians. Iranian counterattacks killed 32 Israeli civilians and an off-duty soldier.
Joining the conflict, the United States attacked three Iranian nuclear sites and Iran responded with missile attacks on a US airbase in Qatar before US President Donald Trump enforced a ceasefire.
Israel promptly said it had achieved its military goals while Trump declared Iran's nuclear program had been "obliterated."
Tehran officialdom quickly said the US ceasefire sought to prevent further damaging missile volleys and that Iran had prevailed in the war, emerging more unified.
Hack Israeli jets
The new educational materials cast this doctrine as moral and patriotic truth, extending from missile engineering to nuclear research.
One high school assignment instructs pupils to “hold a class debate on the advantages and disadvantages of enriching uranium inside the country versus importing enriched uranium.”
Another adds: “Write a two-page outline for a movie in which Iranian students hack into the computer systems of Israeli fighter jets and change the course of events. Share your plan with your teacher and classmates.”
The tone is lively, even playful, framing national defense as a creative activity comprehensible to children.
Iranian officials quickly and now routinely characterize the perseverance of Iran's ruling system as a victory in itself and the messaging now extends beyond sermons and television news programs to the classroom.
Authorities have quashed with deadly force several youth-led protest movements in recent decades and style themselves a bulwark against foreign-led sedition plots.
Still, the course materials indicate Tehran remains determined to purvey state ideology on Iran's youth.
The textbook for younger students, “The 12-Day War,” sets out twenty-five hours of classroom teaching that encourage pupils to see unity, creativity and belief as the reasons Iran prevailed. The lessons blend moral stories with political instruction and domestic detail, grounding the idea of national defense in everyday life.
In one chapter, children visit their grandparents’ home. Over tea, the adults recall the war. “Israel thought it could disrupt the country by killing our commanders,” says Uncle Hossein in the story, “but our Leader quickly appointed successors and restored order.”
The grandfather adds, “Iran had long prepared itself for defense and built powerful, precise missiles for such days.” The grandmother reminds the children that “people helped each other during those days,” while the narrator concludes, “When we are united with our Leader, like one family, we are at our strongest.”
The chapter ends with the line that gives the book its theme: “We are stronger together.” It turns survival into a moral lesson about obedience, faith and collective strength.
Elsewhere, QR codes lead to short video clips. One shows schoolgirls, around nine years old, singing, “This is Iran. If anyone looks at my country the wrong way, I will not forgive them. If needed, I will sacrifice myself. I’m a girl, but I’m strong. God is with me.”
In Islam, nine marks the age of religious maturity for girls, giving the performance a note of solemn duty beneath its cheer.
Other exercises tie national defense to civic behavior. Students are asked to draw family members helping during blackouts or natural disasters, and to write short reflections on how “science and faith together protect the homeland.”
The blending of domestic scenes, religious devotion and military imagery makes the idea of resistance feel both intimate and ordinary.
Israel 'unnatural, dangerous'
Across all levels, Israel is portrayed as the main disruptor of peace in the region and the United States as its enabler.
High-school materials offer more advanced characterizations of arch-enemy Israel, calling it an “unnatural and dangerous regime” and asks students to prove it visually. “With three simple pictures,” it instructs, “show your classmates why Israel is an unnatural and dangerous regime. For example: it has no fixed borders.”
Another prompt begins with: “In your opinion, what does the fact that the Israeli regime, unlike other countries, has no defined borders say about its nature?”
Students are then guided to make an infographic to express the point. At the top of the page, they are told to write: "Israel is unnatural and dangerous because" and fill in the rest with short captions and sketches.
Safavid rout
In some of the new exercises, students are asked to name and build paper models of Iranian missiles and discuss how families can help defend the country.
Another passage recalls the 1514 Battle of Chaldiran, when Safavid Iran lost to the Ottomans for lacking modern weapons, a parable of vigilance and modernization.
Other sections teach how to manage blackouts or natural disasters, blending civic duty with preparedness for crisis.
The book deepens the use of national history in the curriculum, drawing on Shah Ismail Safavid and earlier dynasties alongside Islamic and revolutionary narratives, part of a broader effort to fuse religion, statehood and pride in Iranian endurance.
That emphasis mirrors the nationalist tone of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s speeches following the war. Citing a coup in 1921 and the 1953 US-backed overthrow of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, he has urged Iranians to remember “both sweet victories and bitter events” so that “they are not repeated.”
He described the United States as “inherently arrogant,” blamed foreign powers for Iran’s historic setbacks, and told young people that “the remedy for many of our problems is to become strong.”
In his telling, national power in its military, scientific, and moral forms is the safeguard of independence, a message now embedded in the nation’s classrooms.
That same logic now shapes how the next generation is taught: Iran’s strength, the school materials aim to ensure, must be shored up by its next generation.
Women and men who defy the government—by appearing unveiled or sharing critical content—have in recent weeks discovered their SIM cards abruptly disabled, locking them out of banking, public services and even judicial notices.
The tactic signals a shift toward low-visibility punishment that avoids the spectacle and political cost of arrests.
The shutdowns come without warning.
Donya Rad, a script supervisor who became an early symbol of the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement after posting an unveiled photo in a Tehran teahouse in 2022, said this month that her line had been cut under what officials described as “special measures.”
Rad, who was arrested shortly after that photo went viral, drew fresh attention last month after sharing an image of herself in shorts on a Tehran street.
Shortly afterward, her SIM was blocked. And it remains so weeks later.
“Because I can’t make online purchases—no SIM card, no verification codes—I think I should go on a diet,” she posted on X on Sunday.
“I’ve already had to ask (my sister) Dina to buy my theater tickets, top up my internet, book hotels. I’m going to bed so I don’t end up texting her to order food for me too,” she joked.
‘Communication is my right’
Rad’s post triggered a wave of responses from others who had not previously publicized their own blocking—and the cascade of problems that followed.
Parisa Salehi, a journalist and former political prisoner, said her SIM had been cut months earlier, also without notice. She wrote on X that she refuses to petition prosecutors for its reinstatement.
“Communication is my right,” she said. “My life is already disrupted. I’ve been expelled from university, lost my job, served prison, and now can’t even access the court-notification system.”
Others described being shut out of essential services like banking that require mobile-number verification.
Women’s-rights advocates say the practice is designed to punish and pressure women into conforming to state-mandated dress codes.
New tools of control
The tactic has expanded well beyond hijab enforcement.
After the 12-day war between Israel and Iran earlier this year, security agencies disabled the SIM cards of dozens of citizens in an effort to control reporting and mute criticism.
Several said they were instructed to delete posts, sign pledges not to criticize the government and publish supportive content before their numbers would be restored.
Former journalist turned podcaster Elaheh Khosravi said on X that she will soon lose access to her account and urged followers to keep listening to her podcast. Rad herself promoted Khosravi’s latest episode.
Saeed Sozangar, a network-security instructor and active X user, condemned the tactic as a perversion of Iran’s digital infrastructure.
“E-government has become a tool of control in the hands of a reckless state,” he wrote. “Practices that are illegal even under this system are being carried out casually, with zero accountability.”
No basis in law
Legal experts have also criticized the practice.
In an interview with the moderate daily Shargh, attorney Shahla Orooji said that only a court can impose punishment, and only if it is explicitly provided for in law.
“This measure is neither recognized as a primary punishment nor a supplementary one,” she said. “It is a deprivation of rights and unlawful.”
Another lawyer, Mohammad Oliaei-Fard, said the cutoffs violate the Islamic Republic’s own constitutional protections.
“If a court sought to take this step, due process would be required — including a fair trial and a legally defined punishment,” he said.
Instead, he argued, authorities are imposing “silent, invisible penalties” that evade official scrutiny.
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.
Too Western
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.”
