On October 14, Iranian authorities had put up a photomontage on Vali Asr Street—Tehran's equivalent of Times Square—featuring female artists, athletes, politicians, and academics. The caption read "women of my homeland, Iran." Under normal circumstances, the billboard might have been a cringey piece of patriotic kitsch.
The timing made it a public relations fiasco. The art installation seemed like an attempt to co-opt recent women's rights protests, which the government was in the process of violently suppressing. (At least 200 people have died in the crackdown, including many teenagers.) Several of the celebrities demanded that their pictures be removed.
