Iran’s theocracy exits 2025 battered yet still standing, with analysts telling Eye for Iran that Tehran is interpreting survival after a punishing war with Israel, regional losses and domestic strain as grounds for taking greater risks in 2026.
Iran carried out at least 1,922 executions in 2025, more than twice the number recorded the previous year and the highest figure documented in over a decade, according to a new annual report published by a US-based human rights group.
A series of rare viral videos by Iranian police officers describing severe financial hardship has triggered widespread reaction, with retractions by officers involved fueling allegations of pressure.
Comments by Iran’s foreign minister describing international sanctions as having blessings have sparked a wave of criticism from economists and social media users, many accusing senior officials of being detached from the economic hardship faced by ordinary citizens.
Iran on Thursday began pilot sales of imported super gasoline through mobile fuel trucks, offering the high-octane fuel at market prices far above the country’s newly introduced three-tier subsidized system, state media reported.
Tehran is prepared to step in to protect Iraq’s political system from collapse if formally requested, Iran’s ambassador to Iraq said on Friday.
Iran’s handwoven carpet industry has fallen to its lowest level on record, hit by US sanctions, restrictive foreign-currency rules and regional instability that have driven exports close to collapse, the Financial Times reported on Friday.
Afghan refugees deported from Iran have faced arbitrary detention, torture and extrajudicial killings after returning to Afghanistan, according to an investigation by Afghanistan International.
Cafés—and the social life that has grown around them—have become the latest battleground for Iran’s hardliners, who increasingly see their control over everyday behavior slipping out of reach.
A network of tunnels formed by illegal underground excavations beneath Tehran’s Grand Bazaar has triggered official warnings over serious safety risks, while raising questions about their purpose and those behind the digging.
Sweden is investigating suspected aggravated corporate espionage at a sensitive healthcare-related company involving two brothers of Iranian origin, with TV4 reporting police are examining whether unique medical technology was intended to be taken to Iran.
An Iranian photographer who travelled to Russia in search of work says he was coerced into joining the Russian army and sent to fight in Ukraine, pro-Kyiv media outlet UNITED24 Media reported, citing an interview with the 34-year-old man.
The Israeli military said on Thursday it killed a senior operative in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Quds Force (IRGC-QF) in a joint operation with the country's intelligence agency in northeast Lebanon.
Russian President Vladimir Putin told US President George W. Bush in 2001 that Iran was seeking nuclear weapons but that Moscow would not assist Tehran in acquiring sensitive technologies, according to a newly released memorandum of their first face-to-face meeting.
Iran will not yield to international pressure to allow renewed inspections of nuclear sites hit by the United States in June, the head of the country’s atomic agency said on Wednesday.
Israel lacks the capacity to fight a prolonged war with Iran, an Iranian daily affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps wrote, saying that any renewed conflict would be far costlier and longer than a previous 12-day confrontation.
Iran’s proposed budget for next year contains serious flaws and unexplained spending lines, a lawmaker said on Thursday, criticizing pay rises that lag inflation and new allocations linked to the president’s office.
Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf has sharply escalated his posture toward President Masoud Pezeshkian, openly floating the prospect of impeachments and implicitly questioning the government’s survival.
Iran’s government on Tuesday submitted its draft budget for the year starting in March 2026 to parliament, with early indications suggesting one of the most restrictive fiscal frameworks in recent years amid persistent economic strains.
There is a cruel ritual in Iranian opposition politics: some voices abroad constantly interrogate the “purity” of activists inside—why they did not speak more sharply or endorse maximalist slogans, why survival itself looks insufficiently heroic.
Iran International
Iran International
Freelance journalist
Iran International
Iran International
Iran International
Iran International
Iran International
Iran International
The Iran projected on social media these days—brunch parties, rooftop concerts, fashion shows—is real, but only as a tiny fragment of the country’s reality, where most ordinary people struggle to make ends meet.
This week marked the anniversary of a vast Berlin rally in October 2022 gathering tens of thousands filled in solidarity with Iran’s Woman, Life, Freedom protest movement—a day that now feels almost impossibly distant.
