Rebellion tamed: why Iran is turning rap into a controlled industry

The story is not the “death of religion,” as it may appear from social media snippets depicting once unheard of public concerts and women spurning the mandatory hijab, but a fundamental reordering of how Iranians relate to faith.

Recent surveys by the Netherlands-based Group for Analyzing and Measuring Attitudes in Iran (GAMAAN) found 68% oppose the continuation of the Islamic Republic. Support for its leader and revolutionary principles fell from 18% to 11% between 2022 and 2024.

A leaked culture ministry survey reported that 73% favor separating religion and state. A peer-reviewed article by Ali Sarihan of Maryland's St. Mary's College, published in the journal Religions puts support for a secular system at around 70%.

Yet other indicators show Iran is not secular in the familiar Western sense. The World Values Survey (WVS) still finds 96% identify as Muslim and only 1.3% as atheist.

Faith endures, it seems. It is political Islam that is losing ground.

Hidden secularism

Classic secularization theory imagined that modernization would push religion out of public life. Iran shows something more layered: personal belief can survive even as the political project built around it collapses.

Sociologist Asef Bayat has called this “post-Islamism”—a phase in which political Islam has exhausted its appeal, even as many Iranians retain some form of private faith.

Iran is not “non-religious,” Bayat argues. It is post-theocratic in its political aspirations.

Religious practice has thinned markedly.

Sarihan's study also suggests that the share of Iranians who “always or often” pray fell from 78% in 2015 to 55% in 2023—a steady decline shaped, and likely accelerated in recent years, by repression and economic crisis.

The WVS relies on face-to-face interviews, which in a country like Iran give respondents every incentive to conceal dissent or non-conformity.

Belief recast

Religious rituals remain part of everyday life.

The Shi'ite religious holy days of Muharram and Arbaeen still draw large crowds especially outside major cities, and shrines remain busy.

But for younger Iranians, who express the highest levels of political dissatisfaction, religion no longer aligns with state intrusion into private life.

The compulsory hijab, morality policing and the regulation of personal behavior have turned religion, for many, into a vehicle of control.

The widespread protests of 2022, known by their rallying cry of Woman, Life, Freedom, exposed this rupture. The slogans were never an assault on faith itself but on the state’s claim to define and enforce it.

On social media, hashtags rejecting the Islamic Republic sit comfortably alongside posts defending personal belief. The distinction between faith and religious governance has become unmistakable.

Coercion to choice

Iran’s path to secularization is unusual because it runs in two directions at once: from above and from below.

Heavy-handed enforcement—from hijab rules to cultural censorship—has alienated generations and inadvertently strengthened the case for separating religion and power.

GAMAAN’s highest recorded opposition to the theocratic system came at the height of the 2022 protests, when women’s bodily autonomy became the central battleground: four out of five respondents said they would vote “no” to an Islamic Republic in a hypothetical referendum.

Meanwhile, everyday acts of defiance are reshaping religious life from the ground up.

Women walk unveiled. Families who still value faith increasingly bypass official religious bodies. Younger Iranians look for ethics and spirituality beyond state-sanctioned channels.

God versus government

Two caricatures usually obscure the real picture. Iran is not a “godless society”: personal belief, ritual and religious meaning remain widespread. But nor is it the devout political community the state insists it governs.

The Islamic Republic’s project of political Islam has lost its authority, and most Iranians now prefer a secular political order.

The theocracy has produced one of the region’s strongest secularizing shifts—not through reform but through coercion. The more it has enforced religious rule, the more clearly Iranians have separated faith from the state.

Iran today stands between private, chosen belief and state-imposed religion.

The secularization of politics is now a structural threat to Islamic rule—one that often goes unnoticed amid a myriad of more immediate, louder crises.

After winning the prestigious Palme d'Or at this year's Cannes Film Festival, Panahi’s film has now been nominated for Best Motion Picture (Drama), Best Non-English Language Film, Best Director and Best Screenplay at the Golden Globes 2026.

Panahi’s film will compete in the Best Motion Picture (Drama) category alongside Frankenstein, Hamnet, The Secret Agent, Sentimental Value, and Sinners.

In the Best Director category, he is nominated alongside Paul Thomas Anderson for One Battle After Another, Ryan Coogler for Sinners, Guillermo del Toro for Frankenstein, Joachim Trier for Sentimental Value and Chloé Zhao for Hamnet.

Shot secretly in Tehran, the film has already been selected by France as its official submission to the 2026 Oscars and will also represent France at the Golden Globes.

Last week, Iranian lawyer Mostafa Nili announced that Branch 26 of the Revolutionary Court in Tehran sentenced Panahi in absentia to one year in prison.

The verdict cited “propaganda against the state” and imposed a two-year travel ban and a ban on political or social group membership.

Panahi, a long-time critic of the Islamic Republic, said he plans to return to Iran despite the new ruling. The filmmaker has previously been detained and restricted from travel but continued to make movies that later received major awards at Cannes, Berlin and Venice.

The production was carried out under tight constraints inside the capital, continuing Panahi’s long pattern of making films despite restrictions, surveillance and repeated bans on his professional activity.

It Was Just an Accident follows Panahi’s established cinematic approach—minimalist storytelling, non-professional actors and a blend of documentary and fiction.

His earlier works, including Taxi and No Bears, were also created while he was banned from filmmaking and travel, drawing international support for his case.

Mizan, the judiciary’s outlet quoted the chief justice of Alborz province, Hossein Fazeli Herikandi as saying that the defendant, who is a European country resident, allegedly held “multiple meetings with Mossad officers during a visit to Israel.”

Harikandi provided no evidence supporting the accusation and did not disclose the suspect’s identity – a pattern seen in past espionage cases brought by the Islamic Republic, many of which have later been discredited.

Rights groups note that Iran has repeatedly detained, prosecuted and even executed individuals on espionage charges without presenting verifiable proof.

One of the most prominent examples is the case of Mazyar Ebrahimi, arrested in 2012 and tortured into confessing to assassinating nuclear scientists – a claim he later exposed as fabricated.

Arrest during the 12-day war

Intelligence agents of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Mizan said, arrested the dual national on the fourth day of the 12-day war between Iran and Israel.

“Complex espionage and intelligence equipment” was found at his residence, the report said, but did not specify what those items were or whether the defendant has had access to independent legal counsel.

Following the war, Iran’s judiciary has accelerated arrests and prosecutions on charges of “espionage” or “collaboration with Israel.” In October, political prisoner Javad Naeimi was executed in Qom on such charges.

Pattern of politically driven arrests

Over recent years, the Islamic Republic has detained dozens of foreign and dual nationals, often accusing them of spying or security offenses. Human-rights groups describe the practice as “state hostage-taking,” arguing Tehran uses detainees to pressure Western governments and extract concessions.

International monitors have repeatedly cited Iran’s judiciary for due-process violations, noting that many political defendants are denied independent lawyers and face opaque trials.

Iranian media on Monday described the charges against Esmail Kahrom as relating to making “false statements” and actions “against national security.”

Prosecutors also opened a case against the editor-in-chief of the Jamaran news site, which published Kahrom’s interview.

In the November 30 conversation, Kahrom said that each missile costs roughly two million dollars and argued that if public health mattered to officials, they could redirect the equivalent of 10 missiles to upgrade fuel standards. He said authorities refused because “their priorities lie elsewhere.”

Iran, one of the largest oil and gas producers in the world, is facing a severe natural gas shortage. That shortage has prompted refineries to bulk out the fuel's volume with other substances, like mazut which environmentalists believe has played a major role in Iran's worsening air pollution.

Kahrom warned that the mazut used in Iran contains sulfur levels “seven times the global standard,” and that domestic fuel quality is also inadequate. His comments triggered sharp pushback from state-affiliated outlets.

100%

Mazut, the non-standard gasoline contains harmful additives and has significantly contributed to the air pollution crisis in the country.

The use of the low-grade fuel mazut by power plants in Iran has been linked to severe harm to public health and even fatalities, with Iranians frequently expressing frustration over the worsening air quality and pollution in many cities.

State media dismiss environmental concerns

Young Journalists Club, tied to state broadcaster IRIB, wrote that “certain groups believe defense budgets should be spent on the environment,” calling national security a nonnegotiable necessity and portraying environmental debates as a distraction.

Farhikhtegan, a newspaper affiliated with the state-run Islamic Azad University, similarly argued – referencing the 12-day war with Israel – that critics forget “without deterrence, the cost of war would far outweigh any air pollution.”

Environmental warnings have frequently been downplayed or mocked by officials and pro-government media. Past concerns over water scarcity, energy crises, deforestation and land subsidence have met similar resistance.

A prominent example was the campaign against hydrologist Kaveh Madani, who faced accusations of espionage after warning of impending water collapse and ultimately left the country.

Iran has faced worsening air pollution in recent years alongside severe water and energy shortages, with experts tracing the crisis to aging infrastructure, poor fuel quality and policy inaction.

The figures indicate an average of 12 executions per day – roughly one every two hours.

The executions took place in prisons in different cities across Iran, reports from the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) and the Oslo-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) said. Iranian state media acknowledged only one case.

According to the groups, 23 of those executed had been convicted on murder or drug-related charges, while one person was hanged in connection with an economic case. The judiciary confirmed the latter, describing the individual as a business owner accused of “economic corruption.”

Rights groups warn the real toll is higher

Activists said the announced figure reflects only confirmed cases. Many executions in Iran are carried out in secrecy, and details often reach human-rights organizations weeks or months later due to what monitors call systemic opacity within the judiciary.

The Oslo-based Iran Human Rights said on December 4 that at least 152 people – including five women and several foreign nationals – were executed in November. At least 1,426 people had been executed in the first 11 months of 2025, a 70-percent increase over the same period last year, the organization reported. HRANA has documented more than 1,500 executions between October 2024 and October 2025.

Growing international criticism

The surge has drawn condemnation from foreign governments and international bodies. The UK Foreign Office last month urged Iran to halt executions immediately. Days earlier, the UN General Assembly’s Third Committee passed a resolution condemning the Islamic Republic’s human-rights record, citing the rising number of executions, violations of women’s rights, repression of protesters and cross-border intimidation.

Rights organizations continue to call for stronger international pressure, warning that Iran’s accelerating execution rate reflects what they view as a deepening crisis in due process and the protection of fundamental rights.