Iranian enforcement authorities have blocked the Instagram account of a Tehran restaurant called "Bibi's Kitchen" under a court order, after it published content the regime deemed criminal and subversive, Ynet reported Wednesday.
The restaurant posted what appeared to be an innocuous Instagram story reading "nothing beats Bibi's cutlet," accompanied by the song "Bibi Gol" by an Iranian pop star. Though presented as routine marketing for a menu item, the post quickly went viral and took on a dangerous double meaning in local public discourse due to sensitive political contexts in the country.
The terms used in the post carry heavy weight in Iran's political lexicon since recent years of confrontations and assassinations. While "Bibi" translates in ancient Persian as "grandmother," it is widely recognized among Iranians as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's nickname, and is frequently used in memes and social media by regime opponents to express covert or open support for Israeli strikes. Meanwhile, "cutlet" has become a prominent mocking term in Iranian public discourse since the January 2020 assassination of Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad, a satirical metaphor for the condition of senior regime officials' bodies after airstrikes. The combination was immediately interpreted by users and authorities as a direct, provocative reference to Israeli eliminations of Iranian officials.
Tehran authorities' strict enforcement policy against any innocent or implied use of the word "cutlet" in security contexts is not new, and the Iranian establishment has demonstrated it will not tolerate such phenomena. In January 2023, well-known chef Navab Ebrahimi was arrested after daring to post a cutlet recipe on the exact anniversary of Soleimani's assassination, while his restaurant was closed and his account removed from the network. A similar incident occurred in January 2024, when a doctor and university lecturer in the country's northeast was arrested after posting a picture of a cutlet on the very night senior Revolutionary Guard official Razi Mousavi was eliminated. Following that, in June, criminal proceedings were even opened against playwright and theater director Hossein Faqedel on charges of "disturbing society's psychological security" for writing on social media that political reality turns foolish men into diet cutlets.
Security tensions and extreme sensitivity around anything related to Israel or internal criticism have intensified greatly during recent months of war. Iranian authorities reported in March that more than a thousand people were arrested on charges of spreading anti-government materials on social networks or on suspicion of collaborating with Israel and the United States. Alongside the wave of arrests, Iran's judiciary issued severe, threatening warnings making clear that any assistance, support or encouragement of hostile elements could result in the heaviest punishments, including death sentences.
