Iran International
Women covered in dark veils, wailing at the death of Iran's president Ebrahim Raisi in public displays of sadness, couldn't contrast more than the joy exhibited in street parties, morbid jokes, fireworks and more recently - nude photos.
Some Iranians, women and men, posted nude photos of themselves to rejoice in the news.
Using nudity to express joy over Raisi's death is a way to release from a form of "suffocation," said Hanieh Ziaei, a political scientist and associate researcher at the Raoul-Dandurand Chair in Montreal.
"They feel suffocated. So they want to just open everything and it's maybe the expression of this kind of suffocation," said Ziaei.
The call to go nude to celebrate Raisi's death reportedly started off with a tweet by an Iranian social media influencer who allegedly posted to X at the time of Raisi's disappearance that if he is dead she would pose a naked photo.
Iran International is not revealing the account for their safety. It is not known whether she meant it as a joke, a dare or a form of political expression, but it did lead to some Iranians joining the call and going nude. What seemingly started off as a bet, turned into a viral trend.
Given the forced policing of women and even men's bodies in the Islamic Republic, the use of the body to overcome oppression, according to Siavash Rokni, who specializes in subcultures and social movements in social media, fits with the narrative of defying oppression.
Raisi, he said, is the epitome of oppression.
"Nudity and body has always been a taboo. And it has also been an object or something to protest with."
Rokni told Iran International that you don't have to go far back in history to see examples.
"The hippie movement, an anti-war movement in the 1960s and 70s would be an example of it. More recent, the Femen movement that started in Europe and has gone to other countries in North America and Asia, is an example of using nudity as a form of protest movement. The big piece in this whole story is the fact that a body is a form of speech."
Rokni said by going nude, these Iranians started a conversation against patriarchy and against the taboo of body shaming that has been in Iranian society, especially since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, he said.
"Raisi took lives. He was a murderer, but he also suppressed bodies. When people are sharing their bodies, they're literally going against this patriarchy in our society, but they're going specifically against Raisi and the crimes that he committed for the past 40 years," said Rokni.
Raisi, the so-called 'Butcher of Tehran', was one of four judges who sat on a prosecution committee in 1988 that ordered the execution of thousands of political prisoners - some were reportedly as young as 13 years old.
Raisi denied his role in the 1988 massacre, but in 2021, Amnesty International Secretary General Agnes Callamard urged an investigation of the President for his alleged "crimes against humanity" while he was head of the judiciary.
The conservative hardline cleric took office in August 2021 and was known for enforcing brutal crackdowns on political opposition, and for policing women's bodies.
A recent UN Fact Finding Mission found various cases of rape and other forms of sexual and gender-based violence like gang rape and electric shocks to the genitals. It also uncovered the use of AI technology to identify and punish women who didn't follow the country's strict dress code.
Ziaei said "the body is forbidden," in Iran and by going nude, "it's another way to express their frustration."
"The body is becoming a political space," said Ziaei.
However, it could also be used by cyberbots of the Islamic Republic to discredit the Women-Life-Freedom movement, and it wouldn't be the first time an Iranian women's body was used against her, said Ziaei.
By publishing some nude photos, cyberbots, possibly working for the regime, might try to tell more traditionalist Iranians that this is what opposition activists do. If you trust them and follow their lead, your families can also lose their moral compass.
In 2015, actress and human rights activist Golshifteh Farahani posed nude in a French magazine, and received backlash.
Ziaei said that photo can be seen as a "symbolic act."
Rokni said the negative backlash only exposed the patriarchy in Iranian society.
"Iranians obsessed over the fact that Golshifteh Farahani an Iranian, you know, showed a nude photo of herself, which is interesting because it is okay for the French to be nude, but once it's an Iranian, it's different for some reason. So it just shows you how we have a problem with body," said Rokni.
Iranian-Canadian Lily Pourzand, an expert in gender equality, came to Farahani's defense at the time and said she paid a price for it.
"Part of the society feels that they own women's body," said Pourzand.
As a gender equality expert, Pourzand said, she can't comment on whether going nude after the President's death is effective, but she said it does carry much symbolism.
"That act of protest, which should showcase itself in celebration mood, I think it's a message. That's saying no to the governmental ideology and forceful ownership over women's body, over women's life in Iran," she said.
Pourzand said it could be seen as taking back ownership of one's body.
Whether the nude photos posted in the wake of Raisi's death to celebrate his end, were done in fun, a dare or an act of defiance, is not known but what is known, said Rokni, is nudity is a form of resistance to reclaim control in a repressed society that stands for gender apartheid.
"After the revolution, one of the points that really solidified the Islamic Republic was the domination over body. Domination over body of women by putting scarves over their heads, putting hijab over their heads, but also domination of men by asking them not to wear short sleeved shirts," said Rokni.
Raisi was on a short flight back from the neighboring Republic of Azerbaijan last Sunday, when his helicopter went missing from radars. The crash site was located several hours later, along with bodies of Raisi and his minister for foreign affairs, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.
Speculations, often conspiratorial in nature, mushroomed immediately after the news of the crash, long before Raisi and other officials were confirmed dead. More conjecture emerged in the following hours and days, mostly pointing fingers at Mojtaba Khamenei, the Supreme Leader’s eldest son who is widely believed to be the main contender to replace his father.
On Thursday evening local time, Iran’s general staff of the Armed Forces published a brief statement (with 6 articles) to present its ‘early’ finding and dissuade people from speculation.
“Some actions require more time for a definitive opinion...while some issues can be stated with certainty and are mentioned here,” the statement read, “no evidence of bullet impact or similar instances was observed in the remaining parts of the crashed helicopter…The crashed helicopter caught fire after hitting an altitude.”
This was perhaps the most significant part of the statement, attempting to convince the public that there was no outside attack or interference. It followed another broad remark conveying the same message: “The helicopter continued its pre-planned route and did not deviate from the designated flight path,” implying that the crash was indeed an accident, but offering no reasons for it –a technical problem, for instance, or human error.
The statement was met with skepticism or mockery. Lack of detail, or a rough storyline, at least, raised many more questions that it answered.
“The statement does not address any of the uncertainties surrounding the crash of Raisi’s helicopter,” Iranian journalist and commentator Jamshid Barzegar told Iran International. “All it does is to rid [Iran’s] armed forces of the little credibility that they had, [especially if] you put it alongside the staggering lack of coordination that was displayed at Raisi’s funeral.”
This sentiment was echoed by other analysts and some ordinary Iranians on social media, who judged the statement from ‘not much to offer’ to ‘all lies’, even though it stated clearly that large amounts of evidence had been gathered but “more time is needed to examine some parts and documents.”
Further statements, even with more evidence and detail, are likely to fail to convince ordinary Iranians, many of whom find it hard to trust official announcements –and are often actively looking for inconsistencies or ‘gaffes’ that would discredit the narrative.
This is partly at least due to the Islamic Republic’s long history of deceit which has all but completely eroded trust between the people and the state. And partly a backlash to the regime’s persistent dissemination of its own message and violent suppression of alternative ideas.
One such instance was the downing of a Ukrainian airliner in January 2020, when two missiles fired by the Revolutionary Guard air defense units around Tehran brought down the plane with 176 people on board. All perished in the crash. For three days, military and security officials denied any involvement and argued that it was a technical accident, until videos emerged showing the missiles hitting the plane.
“People are asked to ignore non-expert opinions based on speculations without accurate knowledge of the realities of the scene, or sometimes guided by foreign media in cyberspace and other platforms,” the statement concluded.