In a nutshell, the concept of “ketman” (similar to the concept of “taqiyah”) is the act of denouncing one’s true beliefs in public while secretly maintaining a fervent belief in them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketman

For someone like Satrapi and her family, living a life under the Islamic Republic would have required that they practice Ketman. What’s interesting is that the same practice that evolved out of the Shia subjugation at the hands of the Sunni would come to be reclaimed by the victims of a Shiite regime. Also, the concept found resonance with East European writers living under Communism, who recognized their own suffering in the tales of persecuted Shia in the Middle East.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200607/hitchens-persian/3

Persepolis – because of it’s stand against the tyranny of the Islamic Republic – can really only be viewed in Iran as pirated or smuggled-in material. I just thought it was interesting that a novel displaying classical Iranian themes of political and religious persecution (ketman) should have so much in common with the works of the Eastern European dissidents, and find its only way back into Iran in the form of samizdat. Those struggling under Communism borrowing from ancient Persian tradition while the Persians of today resort to some of the same distribution methods those under Communism used decades ago.