What's Behind Videos Of Iranian Women Using Khamenei’s Burning Picture To Light Cigarettes

Last Updated:January 10, 2026, 14:36 IST

The videos have drawn global attention to a renewed wave of dissent shaped by economic strain and long-standing restrictions on women in Iran.

Iranian women ignite a new protest trend by burning images of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei.

Iran is witnessing a new and striking form of dissent: young women setting fire to photographs of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and using the flames to light cigarettes.

Videos of this act have spread across X, Instagram, Telegram and Reddit, drawing global attention. The clips, widely shared and reshared, have turned a small gesture into a powerful symbol of resistance. They also arrive at a moment of deep internal strain for Iran, where economic hardship, renewed nationwide protests and long-standing anger over women’s rights have converged.

This gesture is simple and brief, yet densely layered. It merges an act that directly challenges the political–religious leadership with a behaviour long discouraged for women in public. As inflation rises, food prices surge, and the currency continues to weaken, frustration on the streets has translated into new forms of dissent that cannot easily be contained by security forces.

Why This Act Carries Unusual Weight

Burning an image of the Supreme Leader is treated as a serious offence under Iranian law and is viewed as a direct repudiation of the authority of the state. At the same time, women smoking publicly has long been discouraged under strict social and religious norms. By combining the two, women are performing a rejection of political control and of the limits placed on their personal behaviour.

This has made the act instantly recognisable and difficult to suppress. Unlike mass gatherings that can be dispersed, a brief, individual gesture recorded on a phone spreads far beyond Iran’s borders and keeps global attention fixed on the country’s internal unrest.

The format also enables rapid replication: any single act can become a symbol repeated across multiple cities.

Why Symbolic Resistance Has Become Central To Iran’s Protest Culture

This latest trend comes after years of escalating symbolic protests, particularly since the death of Mahsa Amini in 2022. Amini, a 22-year-old, died after being detained for allegedly violating the mandatory hijab rule. Her death ignited the most widespread challenge to the Islamic Republic in decades, involving street blockades, flash-mob style gatherings, removal of surveillance cameras, rooftop chants, hair-cutting and the burning of hijabs.

Security forces used tear gas, fired from motorbikes, and even marked protesters with paintball guns for later identification. In response, demonstrators carried extra clothes, wore masks and disrupted traffic to slow the movement of security personnel. Some resorted to symbolic actions such as knocking turbans off clerics or dyeing fountains red to resemble blood.

Women’s resistance continued even after mass street protests were pushed off the streets through months of repression. More than 500 people were killed and over 19,400 arrested during the “Woman, Life, Freedom" movement, but women continued to protest symbolically: appearing without hijab in universities, removing turbans, attending marathons without headscarves and even staging acts of public nudity.

In recent months, women have even taken part in demonstrations with bloody lips and performed gymnastics in the street in front of security forces, expanding the repertoire of public defiance.

Schoolgirls staged their own demonstrations, chanting slogans in schoolyards. This period also saw serial poisonings of girls in schools across multiple cities, affecting more than 800 students. The Health Ministry later acknowledged a “very mild poison" was involved, and a deputy minister briefly stated that some individuals wanted girls’ schools shut down before retracting his remark. No perpetrators were identified.

The new cigarette-lighting gesture emerges from this ongoing tradition of highly visible, brief and potent forms of dissent.

The Risks That Come With Burning The Supreme Leader’s Image

Burning Khamenei’s photograph has carried severe consequences in the past. In November 2025, Omid Sarlak posted a video of himself burning a photograph of the Supreme Leader and was found dead in his car hours later with a gunshot wound to the head.

That same month, former political prisoner Samad Pourshah burned Khamenei’s image in protest against Sarlak’s killing. Security forces raided his home within hours; he escaped arrest only because he was out at the time and has been living in hiding since.

In 2021, poet Qasem Bahrami was arrested in Mashhad after performing the same act and taken to an unknown location, with no information on his fate for two months.

These accounts underscore why the current trend stands out. Despite such precedents, young women appear increasingly undeterred, and the gesture has taken on an even more radical dimension because it now combines political defiance with a challenge to gender norms.

What The Current Economic Crisis Has To Do With It

The resurgence of this protest form coincides with widespread economic distress. High inflation, soaring food prices and the sharply weakening currency have triggered fresh unrest stretching from Tehran’s Grand Bazaar to cities across all 31 provinces. At least 34 protesters and four members of the security forces have been killed in recent demonstrations, with around 2,200 people arrested, according to the US-based HRANA agency.

The strain on daily life has eroded confidence in the political and religious establishment. While authorities have stated that economic grievances should be addressed through dialogue, security forces have used force in several confrontations. As street protests flare and recede under pressure, symbolic acts continue to circulate online, making the unrest harder to silence.

How This Trend Challenges Khamenei’s Authority

Iran’s regional position has weakened due to Israeli attacks on Iranian-backed groups, the removal of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and growing foreign pressure. Khamenei, now 86, has vowed that Iran “will not yield to the enemy" as unrest grows. Exiled opponents believe the current turmoil could weaken the establishment, though the extent of their support inside Iran remains unclear.

Against this backdrop, the act of burning the Supreme Leader’s photograph becomes a sharper political statement.

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