Simultaneous with Nowruz and New Year celebrations in Iran, reports have emerged from several provinces indicating that multiple individuals have been arrested and are being prosecuted by the judiciary.
The prosecutor of Fars Province’s capital announced on Sunday, March 23, that “a few individuals were arrested in certain tourist sites of Fars” during the New Year’s handover.
According to Kamran Mirhaji, the Public and Revolutionary Prosecutor of Fars Province, these individuals—whose number and identities were not disclosed—were arrested on charges of “insulting sanctities, disturbing public order, and failing to observe Islamic norms.”
Earlier, Hassan Hosseini, governor of Mashhad, also stated that “a small number of people” were identified and arrested on Thursday during the Nowruz ceremony at Ferdowsi’s Tomb in Tus, Mashhad.
According to him, those arrested—estimated to be “between ten to fifteen individuals”—“disrupted the event” and chanted “anti-structural slogans.”
With the increasing unpopularity of the regime and its policies among the general population, more people each year prefer to welcome the New Year at historical rather than religious sites. The beginning of the solar year 1404 followed the same trend, witnessing large gatherings at sites like Ferdowsi’s Tomb in Tus, Hafezieh, and Persepolis in Fars Province.
These gatherings during Nowruz, especially in Kurdish-populated provinces, have routinely led to confrontations with local, provincial, and national security forces of the Islamic Republic.
In this context, the Kurdpa website reported on Sunday that a man named Seyfollah Khan Ghafari was arrested on Saturday, March 22, after participating in Nowruz ceremonies in the village of Qaleh Kohneh, Saqqez—without a judicial warrant.
A day earlier, the Hengaw website—also covering Kurdish regions—reported that Keyhan Tadbir and Mohammad Ghaderi, both 17 years old, along with two other individuals from Marivan named Mohammad Nikpey and Kawa Dastan, were arrested by the Intelligence Department in relation to Nowruz celebrations in Kurdistan.
Additionally, 13 more names must be added, according to the Kurdistan Human Rights Organization, which wrote that last week, these individuals were arrested in Sardasht, in West Azerbaijan Province, due to participating in Nowruz ceremonies.
Last year, the Kurdistan Human Rights Network also reported that at least 38 Kurdish citizens were summoned or arrested in the first two months of 1403 for organizing or participating in Nowruz ceremonies.
The continuation of these policies to suppress Nowruz celebrations is less a sign of government strength and more a reflection of the regime’s fear of any public gathering outside its ideological framework. Nowruz, as a cultural heritage shared by all Iranians, is increasingly becoming a vehicle for civil and cultural dissent—a movement that, through slogans, songs, and presence at historical landmarks, challenges the authoritarian foundations of the Islamic Republic.
Once again, this situation raises a fundamental question for Iranian society:
Why does a government that calls itself “Islamic” and “of the people” fear the people’s joy, Ferdowsi’s poetry, Hafezieh, and Persepolis?
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