Art and protest in Iran

The international community should recognise Iranian artists as human rights defenders on a par with activists, lawyers and journalists opposing the regime.

That is the recommendation of a new report titled "I Create; I Resist – Iranian Artists on the Frontline of Social Change", which details the Islamic Republic's "systematic attacks" on artists and their crackdown on "freedom of expression" in the wake of the Woman, Life, Freedom protest movement.

The report by the New York-based human rights organisation Artistic Freedom Initiative (AFI) was released on the second anniversary of the death of Mahsa Amini. Arrested by Iran's morality police for violating the country's strict hijab laws, the 22-year-old died in custody after being beaten and tortured, sparking a wave of protests that rocked the regime and led to the deaths of hundreds of people and the detention of thousands more.

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Voices on the ground

Contemporary artists in Iran played a "pivotal role" in helping turn a "nationwide protest into a cultural uprising that resonated across the globe", wrote AFI's Sanjay Sethi and Johanna Bankston on the Atlantic Council.

Artists, musicians, authors and creatives "shaped the movement's messaging". Among these was a series of Persian language posts on X by musician Shervin Hajipour that became the song "Baraye" ("For the sake of") and the de facto anthem of the protests. Visual artists meanwhile used graffiti, illustrations, paintings and graphic designs to transform public spaces into "canvases of dissent".

One of Iran's most famous artists, Marjane Satrapi, whose graphic novel "Persepolis" depicting life following the Islamic Revolution was turned into an award-winning film in 2007, produced a collaborative comic called "Woman, Life, Freedom", "based on actual voices and perspectives from those on the ground", said Bahar Momeni in a blog for the Center for Iranian Diaspora Studies at San Francisco State.

Arrests and work bans

The AFI, working with humanitarian aid group Voices Unbound and UC Berkeley School of Law, documented how over the past two years, the Islamic Republic has "sought to suppress artistic expression and exert control over influential artists, including through censorship, online surveillance, work bans, celebrity task forces, and punitive measures, including arbitrary arrest and prosecution".

In 2022 alone, more than 100 artists were arrested and subjected to work bans, with the report highlighting 15 cases of artists who were prosecuted under "vague and overbroad laws related to the dissemination of propaganda, the protection of national security, and the safeguarding of public morality".

Rapper Toomaj Salehi was arrested, tortured and originally sentenced to death for his outspoken support of the protests, while photojournalist Yalda Moaiery was sentenced to six years in jail for "spreading propaganda against the regime" by photographing the protests (she was later granted amnesty for this particular charge).

A distorted narrative

The Islamic Republic has also used "bureaucratic offices to target artists", wrote Sethi and Bankston. In particular, the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance has been "instrumental in silencing artists through online and physical surveillance, the issuance of work bans against artists, and the forced closure of publishing houses, theatres and arts organisations".

The regime's propaganda arm even produced its own graphic novel titled "Woman, Life, Freedom", which showed a "distorted narrative of the ongoing movement, falsely claiming that it was orchestrated by the country's Western enemies", said Momeni. It manipulated search engines so that anyone searching for the book in Farsi would be directed to the regime's version.

In response to the brutal crackdown, the AFI has called on countries to grant asylum and humanitarian visas to artists, cultural workers and other victims fleeing persecution for their involvement in, or defence of, human rights during protests in Iran.