A protester lights a cigarette off a burning poster of Iran’s Supreme Chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei throughout an illustration in Berlin, Germany, in assist of the nationwide mass protests in Iran in opposition to the federal government, Jan. 14. AP-Yonhap
LONDON — With one puff of a cigarette, a lady in Canada grew to become a world image of defiance in opposition to Iran’s bloody crackdown on dissent — and the world noticed the flame.
A video that has gone viral in latest days exhibits the lady — who described herself as an Iranian refugee — snapping open a lighter and setting the flame to a photograph she holds. It ignites, illuminating the visage of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s highest cleric. Then the lady dips a cigarette into the glow, takes a fast drag — and lets what stays of the picture fall to the pavement.
Whether or not staged or a spontaneous act of defiance — and there’s loads of debate — the video has turn into one of many defining photos of the protests in Iran in opposition to the Islamic Republic’s ailing economic system , as U.S. President Donald Trump considers army motion within the nation once more.
The gesture has jumped from the digital world to the true one, with opponents of the regime lighting cigarettes on images of the ayatollah from Israel to Germany and Switzerland to the USA.
Within the 34 seconds of footage, many throughout platforms like X, Instagram and Reddit noticed one individual defy a sequence of the theocracy’s legal guidelines and norms in a riveting act of autonomy. She wears no hijab, three years after the “Ladies, Life, Freedom” protests in opposition to the regime’s required headscarves.
She burns a picture of Iran’s supreme chief, a criminal offense within the Islamic republic punishable by loss of life. Her curly hair cascades — yet one more transgression within the Iranian authorities’s eyes. She lights a cigarette from the flame — a gesture thought of conceited in Iran.
And in these few seconds, circulated and amplified one million occasions over, she steps into historical past.
Anti-Iranian regime protesters mild cigarettes with a lit paper depicting Ali Khamenei, Supreme Chief of Iran throughout a gathering outdoors the U.S. Consulate in Milan, Jan. 13. AFP-Yonhap
In 2026, social media is a central battleground for narrative management over conflicts. Protesters in Iran say the unrest is an illustration in opposition to the regime’s strictures and competence. Iran has lengthy solid it as a plot by outsiders like United States and Israel to destabilize the Islamic Republic.
And each side are racing to inform the story of it that can endure.
Iranian state media publicizes wave after wave of arrests by authorities, concentrating on these it calls “terrorists” and in addition apparently in search of Starlink satellite tv for pc web dishes , the one solution to get movies and pictures out to the web. There was proof on Thursday that the regime’s bloody crackdown had considerably smothered the dissent after activists stated it had killed no less than 2,615 folks. That determine dwarfs the loss of life toll from another spherical of protest or unrest in Iran in a long time and recollects the mayhem of the nation’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Social media has bloomed with images of individuals lighting cigarettes from images of Iran’s chief. “Smoke ’em should you obtained ’em. #Iran,” posted Republican U.S. Sen. Tim Sheehy of Montana.
Within the age of AI, misinformation and disinformation, there’s considerable cause to query emotionally and politically charged photos. So when “the cigarette woman” appeared on-line this month, loads of customers did simply that.
It wasn’t instantly clear, for instance, whether or not she was lighting up inside Iran or someplace with free-speech protections as an indication of solidarity. Some noticed a background that gave the impression to be in Canada. She confirmed that in interviews. However did her collar line up accurately? Was the flame life like? Would an actual lady let her hair get so near the fireplace?
Many questioned: Is the “cigarette woman” an instance of “psyops?” That, too, is unclear. That’s a characteristic of warfare and statecraft as previous as human battle, wherein a picture or sound is intentionally disseminated by somebody with a stake within the consequence. From the allies’ pretend radio broadcasts throughout World Struggle II to the Chilly Struggle’s nuclear missile parades, historical past is wealthy with examples.
The U.S. Military doesn’t even disguise it. The 4th Psychological Operations Group out of Ft. Bragg in North Carolina final 12 months launched a recruitment video known as, “Ghost within the Machine 2 that’s peppered with references to “PSYWAR.” And the Gaza conflict featured a ferocious battle of optics : Hamas compelled Israeli hostages to publicly smile and pose earlier than being launched, and Israel broadcast their jubilant reunions with household and buddies.
A demonstrator lights a cigarette with fireplace from a burning image of Iran’s Supreme Chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei outdoors the Iranian embassy throughout a rally in assist of nationwide protests in Iran in London, Jan. 12. Reuters-Yonhap
Regardless of the reply, the symbolism of the Iranian lady’s act was highly effective sufficient to rocket around the globe on social media — and encourage folks at real-life protests to repeat it.
The lady didn’t reply to a number of efforts by The Related Press to substantiate her identification. However she has spoken to different shops, and AP confirmed the authenticity of these interviews.
On X, she calls herself a “radical feminist” and makes use of the display screen title Morticia Addams —- after the exuberantly creepy matriarch of “The Addams Household” — sheerly out of her curiosity in “spooky issues,” the lady stated in an interview with the nonprofit outlet The Goal.
She doesn’t enable her actual title to be printed for security causes after what she describes as a harrowing journey from being a dissident in Iran — the place she says she was arrested and abused — to security in Turkey. There, she instructed The Goal, she obtained a pupil visa for Canada. Now, in her mid-20s, she stated she has refugee standing in and lives in Toronto.
It was there, on Jan. 7, that she filmed what’s turn into often called “the cigarette woman” video a day earlier than the Iranian regime imposed a near-total web blackout.
“I simply wished to inform my buddies that my coronary heart, my soul was with them,” she stated in an interview on CNN-News18, a community affiliate in India.
Within the interviews, the lady stated she was arrested for the primary time at 17 in the course of the “bloody November” protests of 2019 , demonstrations that erupted after Trump pulled the U.S. out of the nuclear deal that Iran had struck with world powers that imposed crushing sanctions.
“I used to be strongly against the Islamic regime,” she instructed The Goal. Safety forces “arrested me with tasers and batons. I spent an evening in a detention heart with out my household realizing the place I used to be or what had occurred to me.” Her household finally secured her launch by providing a pay slip for bail. “I used to be underneath surveillance from that second on.”
In 2022 in the course of the protests after the loss of life of Mahsa Amini in custody , she stated she participated in a YouTube program opposing the obligatory hijab and started receiving calls from blocked numbers threatening her. In 2024, after Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi died in a helicopter crash , she shared her story about it — and was arrested in her dwelling in Isfahan.
The lady stated she was questioned and “subjected to extreme humiliation and bodily abuse.” Then with out rationalization, she was launched on a excessive bail. She fled to Turkey and started her journey to Canada and, finally, international notoriety.
“All my relations are nonetheless in Iran, and I haven’t heard from them in a couple of days,” she stated within the interview, printed Tuesday. “I’m actually frightened that the Islamic regime would possibly assault them.”
