The Red Lion and Sun Society ( ) of Iran was established in 1922 and admitted to the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement in 1923. However, some sources report that the symbol was introduced at Geneva in 1864 as a countermeasure to the Red Crescent and the Red Cross used by two of Iran's rivals: the Ottoman Empire and the Russian Empire, respectively.
In 1980, because of the association of the emblem (Iran's historic Lion and Sun) with the recently deposed Pahlavi dynasty, the newly established Islamic Republic of Iran replaced the Red Lion and Sun with the Iranian Red Crescent Society, adopting the symbol used by most other Muslim-majority countries. Though the Red Lion and Sun has now fallen into disuse, Iran has, in the past, reserved the right to readopt it at any time; the Geneva Conventions continue to recognize it as an official emblem, and that status was confirmed by Protocol III in 2005, even as it added the neutral Red Crystal.
After the purge and persecution of medical staff during the 2025âÂÂ2026 Iranian protests and the 2026 Iran massacres, a new network of Iranian doctors, nurses, paramedics and volunteers was formed to provide safe medical relief.