After the Islamic Republic turned its guns on protesters during Iran’s nationwide January uprising, filling streets, hospitals and morgues with the wounded and the dead, it may have silenced the streets, but protest and dissent have found a new battleground: the body.
Across Iran, a new trend has emerged: political memory, national identity and dissent are being etched permanently onto skin.
More than a dozen Iranian tattoo artists, protesters, relatives of those killed, former political prisoners and other sources in Iran contributed to this report. Many asked that their full names, cities or other identifying details be withheld, citing fears of surveillance or reprisals for speaking to international media.
Their accounts point to a striking shift since the January bloodshed: a surge in tattoos tied to protest, mourning and national identity, including among first-time clients, with more people choosing to make those messages permanent and increasingly visible on their bodies.
Increasingly, those tattoos are also being placed where they can be seen.
“People aren’t afraid anymore,” one tattoo artist inside Iran said.
She described a 15-year-old getting their first tattoo, the word “Iran” and a map of the country, and a 40-year-old woman, also a first-time client, who chose 18 and 19 Dey, the Persian-calendar dates corresponding to January 8 and 9. Another client, a 20-year-old woman, had the Lion and Sun tattooed prominently on her chest, where it would be difficult to conceal.
Other artists said the trend spans generations, from teenagers and people in their 20s to clients in their 50s and 60s, with political and national symbols increasingly appearing on visible parts of the body such as wrists, hands and necks. One Tehran tattoo artist recalled tattooing the signature of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, the former Shah of Iran, on both a woman in her 60s and a man in his 50s.
Another tattoo artist in the southwestern city of Ahvaz said the most requested designs were Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi’s signature and portrait, along with the Lion and Sun.
Many of the designs carry meanings immediately recognizable to Iranians. The Lion and Sun, a centuries-old Iranian emblem that appeared on the national flag before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, has become one of the most visible. Others include the Pahlavi crown, the signature and portrait of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, and the phrase Javid Shah, meaning “Long Live the Shah.”
Other designs reach further back into Persian history and culture. The sarv, or Persian cypress, an ancient motif found throughout Persian art, poetry and gardens, has long been associated with endurance and immortality and, in modern interpretations, freedom and resilience. Maps and calligraphy of Iran, the names and portraits of slain protesters, and 18 and 19, the Persian-calendar dates corresponding to January 8 and 9, have also become part of the visual language of this latest wave.
While protest-related tattoos are not new in Iran, both the scale and imagery of this latest wave have evolved in step with the protests themselves and the slogans chanted in the streets.
During the 2022 uprising, sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, one tattoo artist said many protest-related requests centered on the movement’s defining slogan “Woman, Life, Freedom”. Those tattoos have not disappeared, she said, but since January, designs tied to national identity, the monarchy and the slain have become increasingly prominent.
“It wasn’t that Woman, Life, Freedom ended and something else began,” she said. “This was a continuation of the same movement.”
She added that the Lion and Sun had become one of the most requested designs, alongside Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi’s signature and portrait.
Tattoo artists have also turned their work into acts of solidarity.
Across social media, some advertised that protest and memorial designs would be done for free “forever,” while others asked clients to cover only the cost of materials. One artist told Iran International she tattooed the word “Iran” on at least 30 people free of charge during the month of the January uprising.
