Iran’s official state news agency published a human-interest story about love, war, and a baby no one wanted. Within hours, it had deleted part of its own report. Days later, the agency’s boss was summoned to court.
The story itself was unimpeachable by any official standard.
IRNA’s photo essay, titled A Mother’s Love, 40 Days Long, followed Sara Kan’ani, a 37-year-old writer and artist in Tehran, who took in an abandoned newborn through a temporary foster care program run by the welfare organization Behravish during Iran’s 40-day war with the United States and Israel.
She named the baby Ahu — after a line drawn from the poet Hafez. She tried to adopt her permanently. She was told that single women are de-prioritized. After 40 days, she handed the baby back.
IRNA framed the story as a tribute to volunteerism, welfare institutions, and what it called “family-centered culture.” It was, in every sense, state-approved content.
The problem was the photographs.
Several images showed Kan’ani without an Islamic head scarf — inside her own home. Wearing a hijab is mandatory in Iran, though enforcement has grown increasingly inconsistent since the 2022 “Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising, as more women defy the authorities.
Within minutes of publication, pressure mounted on social media. IRNA quietly deleted several images and revised the photo essay without explanation or a correction notice.
The self-censorship was not enough.
Iran’s judiciary announced on May 20 that IRNA’s chief executive had been summoned to the Press and Media Court “to provide explanations” following the publication of images of a woman “without observing Islamic laws and regulations.”
The photographer, Marzieh Mousavi, pushed back on Instagram. “It seems that amid all the debate, the essence of the story got lost,” she wrote. “This series is not about dress. It is not about judging a woman. It is about motherhood, care, and giving one’s heart to a baby who has no one.”
Critics pointed to a glaring inconsistency.
Images of unveiled women at state-sanctioned public gatherings — events the Islamic republic actively promotes and photographs to project an image of normalcy and popular support — have circulated freely on domestic platforms without consequence.
Journalist Ali Khaligh noted the contrast directly, pointing to images of women without head scarves at nighttime pro-establishment events that “are easily published and republished on domestic websites and networks.”
The distinction, critics argue, is not about the head scarf. A woman unveiled at a state-sponsored rally is useful. A woman unveiled in a perfectly ordinary domestic setting is not.
