Iran International
A heated online dispute over photographs showing civilian victims of strikes in Iranian cities has exposed both the deep mistrust many Iranians feel toward official information and a widening rift among the public itself over how to interpret images emerging from the war.
As photos of wounded civilians circulated widely on social media, some users accused photographers and authorities of staging scenes for propaganda, claiming that individuals depicted in widely shared images were actors and that injuries, dust and distress visible in the photos had been artificially created using makeup and staged scenes.
The accusations spread quickly across Persian-language social media, with skeptics pointing to perceived similarities between people appearing in images linked to separate incidents as supposed evidence.
Even the Persian-language account of Israel’s foreign ministry weighed in on the controversy by reposting one of the disputed images and writing: “If they call the Gaza filmmaking industry ‘Pallywood’, what do they call this?”
But the claims were soon challenged by fact-checkers and other users, and in some cases the accusations were later withdrawn.
Iran’s independent fact-checking platform Factnameh said a review of several of the controversial images found no evidence supporting claims that they had been staged or taken at different times and locations as alleged.
“Given the presence of debris and victims, the idea that actors were staged in such a scene is highly unlikely,” the platform said, noting that the individuals in the images show clear differences in facial features and body structure despite some similarities.
Mehdi Ghasemi, one of the photographers whose work came under scrutiny, rejected the allegations and defended his work.
“I’m 47 years old, and it’s been 33 years since I received my first documentary photography award, and I haven’t taken a single reconstructed or manipulated frame,” he wrote on X.
One user who had asserted that a woman in a widely circulated photograph was an actress later deleted the post and issued an apology after acquaintances identified the woman and her husband as real individuals whose home had been destroyed in the strikes.
The controversy has unfolded amid tight wartime restrictions on reporting and photography in Iran.
Critics argue that permits to document sensitive scenes are tightly controlled and often granted only to photographers seen as aligned with the authorities, making independent documentation of chaotic strike sites difficult.
Combined with broader limits on information flow during the conflict, those restrictions have left social media as one of the primary arenas for competing narratives about events on the ground.
The dispute reflects how deeply distrust of official narratives has taken root in Iranian society after decades of censorship and propaganda. In such an environment, even genuine documentation can quickly become the subject of suspicion.
“The issue is exactly like the story of the boy who cried wolf,” one user wrote online.
“When a government lacks legitimacy to this extent and has always chosen to lie at every step, eventually no one believes the truth either. Now factor in cutting off communication channels on top of that, and you end up with the situation we are in.”
For others, however, the rush to dismiss images of civilian suffering as staged propaganda risks deepening divisions at a moment when the war itself is already reshaping daily life across the country.
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.