By Saeed Shah
Publication Date: 2026-03-15 18:02:00
A stirring song – apparently sung by a young woman, whose lyrics express the hope that sacrifice will lead to a better future – has become the soundtrack for Iranians in the first half of 2026, as the country experienced the brutal crackdown on anti-regime protests and then the US-Israeli airstrike, now in its third week.
However, the singer named Nava is a product of artificial intelligence, created by a London-based artist of Iranian origin, Farbod Mehr.
Nava cannot be arrested, unlike Iranian singer Shervin Hajipour, who was jailed after his song Baraye became the unofficial anthem of the 2022 protest movement.
The figure represented Iranian women who are not allowed to sing in public, Mehr said. “I did it for people and I liked how they responded to it,” he said.
“Tulips have bloomed from the blood of youth,” Nava sings. The song Javanan-e Vatane (Youth of the Homeland) contains lyrics by the 20th century poet Aref Qazvini, whose work called for resistance…
