✍️ Issue #005 Correction - My apologies for a typo in the previous issue of Iranophilia. The year that ended last week was 1403, not 1393. This has been corrected in the online edition.

CURRENT EVENTS

Tensions in Urmia - Events in the northwestern city of Urmia during the first few days of the Iranian New Year - and the subsequent interpretation of them - were a blunt reminder of vast array of tensions threatening to tear apart Iranian society.

Background of the Events

Urmia is the capital of West Azerbaijan province. Most its residents are ethnically Azeri, though it also has Kurdish and Armenian minorities. The Azeris are mostly Shia Muslims, the Kurds are mostly Sunni Muslims (as opposed to Kurds in other provinces), and the Armenians are Christian.

During the past few decades, there has been a significant level of Kurdish migration into the city. This has led to a rise in tensions among the Azeri majority. Additionally, during this period of time, there has been a rise in both Kurdish nationalism (as Kurds gained more autonomy in Iraq and Syria) and Azeri nationalism (with the rise of Turkey and the Republic of Azerbaijan), leading to even more tension.

The overlapping Iranian & Islamic calendars this year - in which the first week of Nowruz fell during the last 10 days of Ramadan & specifically the martyrdom of Imam Ali - laid the grounds for these tensions to reach their peak.

The Nowruz Celebration

On Tuesday March 18th (28th of Esfand), Kurds from the area gathered in Urmia for a massive Nowruz celebration. This was the same day as Chaharshambe Souri. While this is not the first year Kurds have held this ceremony, this year’s celebration was the biggest ever, numbering in the thousands. The event was held with the permission of local authorities (you can see a banner with the picture of Ayatollah Khomeini & Ayatollah Khamenei in several videos, along with Iranian flags), though they asked them to hold it on Tuesday, rather than Wednesday as originally requested.

The event itself was mostly music and dancing, including some cases of mixed dancing of men and women. In some parts of the crowd, there were Kurdish slogans chanted, from “Beji Kurdistan” (Long Live Kurdistan) to more explicitly pan-Kurdish slogans.

On the next day, which was the eve of the 19th of Ramadan, a major Shia mourning day, videos of the event went viral. Many Azeris felt angered, both because of the explicit Kurdish nationalism and because it was seen as insulting towards the day of mourning. To make things worse, several foreign outlets published the videos with very polemic captions. For example they said the event was in “Urmia Province” not the correct name “West Azerbaijan Province”.

At the same time, some Iranian opposition pages, added a political element to it. For example Masih Alinejad, a well known anti government activist, posted a video of the event and called it a “referendum” in which the attendees said “no to the Islamic Republic” because their lack of hijab and freemixing dancing.

The Great Alavid Procession

For several days, videos spread online of the Nowruz event. It was harshly criticized by several clerics. Then, on Saturday March 22 (2nd of Farvardin), there was a massive event held called “The Great Alavid Procession”.

This also was not a new event. Every year there are large processions in Azeri majority cities for the martyrdom of Imam Ali. However a local cleric encouraged people to show up in large numbers as a response to the “insult to their values”. Attendance at this year’s event was bigger than normal.

The event started off as a normal religious mourning ceremony. However, a loud group of Azeri nationalists quickly grabbed all the attention, with explicitly anti Kurdish and pan-Turkish slogans & holdings sticks.. This included former MP Nader Ghazizadeh, who was prominently in the front of the line.

Online videos showed thousands chanting videos like “Urmia is Turk and will remain Turk”. One group chanted “Death to Kurds, Persians, and Armenians”. One protester filmed himself openly threatening to kill Kurds and saying (in Azeri) it was only because his love for the Supreme Leader that he didn’t spill all their blood (the man was later identified and detained).

There were also numerous pictures of people making the pan Turkish grey wolf salute, including right in front of the governor of the province.

Reaction to the Event

Videos of the event soon went viral, alarming many people at the prospect of ethnic unrest. Many opposition channels blamed the government itself for instigating event (I don’t believe this). For example Manoto TV, made a report claiming the government uses ethnic tensions to stay in power & called the mourning ceremony a government event.

Several pro-government journalists pointed out recent remarks from Turkish foreign minister Hakan Fidan in which he had threatened to spark unrest in Iran. There were some rumors on social media that foreign agents had been arrested in the event.

Overall the two events served as a stark reminder of the many tensions threatening national unity - between different ethnicities, different religious sects, religious people and secular people, the government and opposition, and foreign governments against Iran.

The Iranistics department of the University of Tehran made a meaningful post as a response to these events - calling Urmia a city of tolerance and diversity where mosques, churches, and synagogues are wall to wall and Kurds, Azeris, and others live together under the name of Iran in peace

MORE HEADLINES

• Former Green Movement leader Mehdi Karoubi’s house arrest formally ended after 15 years. An online video showed former President Khatami visit his home. According to reformist sources, Mirhossein Mousavi’s house arrest will also end in a few months.

• Steve Witkoff, the United States Special Envoy to the Middle East, revealed some information about Trump’s letter to Ayatollah Khamenei. I posted the full video with Persian subtitles as well as an English transcript on X.

• Iran sent an official response to Trump’s letter on Thursday March 27th through Oman, in which it expressed openness to indirect talks. President Pezeshkian stated the response was directly from the Supreme Leader. I provided my own analysis of the current state of Iran-US relations (written before the letter was sent) in a long form article here.

• In what may be the worst cyberattack in Iranian history, a hacker group published hacked documents from Bank Sepah, including information from 42 million customers.

• A 43 day standoff in which protesters demanding that the government enforce a strict hejab bill had camped outside the Majles building finally ended. Speaker of Parliament Mohamad Bagher Ghalibaf gave orders for the police to crack down on the encampment. There were initially some claims online the police had acted violently, but Farja published a video strongly denying this. The standoff is part of a larger effort by center-right forces aligned with Ghalibaf to crack down on groups they view as extremists (many affiliated with Saeed Jalili).

CULTURE

Paytakht Season 7 - The seventh season of the popular Nowruz series Paytakht has started. For those outside the country, the series can be viewed for free from Telewebion.

Google Trends - I made an X thread looking at interesting observations of Iranian behavior through Google Trends data on what Iranians were searching during Nowruz and the last nights of Ramadan.

SPORTS

World Cup Qualification - Team Melli comfortably qualified to the 2026 World Cup, after a 2-0 victory over the UAE and a 2-2 tie with Uzbekistan. This will be Iran’s seventh appearance at the World Cup. Despite the success, some fans remain less than satisfied with the team’s performance.

Beach Soccer Asian Championship - Iran became the champions of the 2025 Beach Soccer Asian Cup after an 8-1 win over Oman. It scored a whopping 55 goals in 6 games. With this result, it will qualify for the Beach Soccer World Cup - which will be held this May.

Asian Wrestling - Iran won both the Greco-Roman and Freestyle Asian Wrestling championship with a team total 9 gold medals, 4 silver medals, and 4 bronze medals.

ACROSS THE WEB

• Former President Rouhani’s speech: Former President Hassan Rouhani gave a 24 minute long speech to his former cabinet members, talking about the numerous crises Iran faces today and how they compare to the experiences of the Iran-Iraq War. I translated the speech into English and posted the full transcript (along with a link to the original Persian video) here.

• Nuts for Bolts: An interesting article looking at how Iranian automakers are dealing with the consequences of the ongoing currency crisis through pistachios.

• Iran Imagined Through Studio Ghibli: A beautiful video giving a tour of Iran in the style of Studio Ghibli animations

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