The Secretary of the Iranian Headquarters to Preserve Cultural Heritage ordered a ban on the sale of Buddha statues in February 2013 as symbols of a "cultural invasion". Authorities confiscated Buddha statues from shops in Tehran to stop the promotion of the religion.

In 2012, Iranian authorities targeted and closed down shops for selling Barbie dolls, which had already been banned since the mid-1990s. Police confiscated dozens of Barbie dolls in order to avert the spread Western culture. Just a month later the government also banned the sale of characters from the popular show "The Simpsons".

The Iranian regime outlawed Valentine’s Day in 2011 in order to crackdown on Western influence. Iranian state media announced that "symbols of hearts, half-hearts, red roses, and any activities promoting this day are banned" and that legal action will be taken against those who do not comply.

In July 2010, Iranian authorities launched a crackdown on Western hairstyles. In an effort to rid the country of "decadent Western cuts," officials banned the mullet, ponytails, elaborate spikes, and long hair for men. The Iranian Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance even produced a style guide containing haircuts that meet the government’s approval.

In 2009 Iranian authorities warned shopkeepers that all mannequins must be covered up - wearing headscarves and hiding any of the bodily curves. “Using unusual mannequins exposing the body curves and with the heads without Hijabs are prohibited to be used in the shops,” Iran's morality police said in a statement.

Since the inception of the Islamic Republic, women have been discriminatorily barred from attending sports events at stadiums in order to enforce gender segregation. Those attempting to defy the ban face arrest, such as the case of British-Iranian national Ghoncheh Ghavami in June 2014.

In October 2014, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, blamed the United States and the British government for creating the Islamic State: “If anyone fuels the fire in this regard, he or she will definitely be helping sinister America and Britain which are the creators of the ISIL and al-Qaeda.”

Senior Iranian officials have openly described the Charlie Hebdo shooting in Paris as a false flag operation. For example, Iranian parliament speaker Ali Larijani said in January 2015 that the French intelligence services perpetrated the attack to tarnish the image of Muslims.

Iran’s former president Ahmadinejad – echoing other Iranian officials – suggested in a speech in 2010 to the UN General Assembly that "some segments within the U.S. government orchestrated the attack to reverse the declining American economy, and its grips on the Middle East, in order to save the Zionist regime."

In 2012 Iran's state-run PressTV blamed Israel for the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary and accused the US government of a cover-up: Israel targeted "America in the most hideous and brutal way possible, in fact, an Israeli ‘signature attack,’ one that butchers children, one reminiscent of the attacks that killed so many children in Gaza."