Two inmates die in Iranian prisons over lack of medical care

Shahbazi, a father of two, was detained in January 2024 and later convicted of “spying for Israel” and “corruption on earth,” charges he denied before his execution early Wednesday.

The State Department said his execution "underscores the Iranian regime’s instrumental use of capital punishment to silence dissent and instill fear."

"Shahbazi, accused of espionage, was convicted in a grossly unfair trial based on forced confessions obtained under torture," it said in a post on its Persian-language X.

Rights groups have described the proceedings as grossly unfair and based on forced confessions obtained under torture.

His initial sentence was handed down in May 2025 by Judge Abolghasem Salavati, who was sanctioned by the United States in 2019 for presiding over unfair trials, extracting forced confessions, and imposing harsh sentences on political prisoners and journalists.

"Shahbazi’s case highlights the regime’s reliance on fabricated evidence and brutal tactics, including solitary confinement and physical abuse, to suppress opponents," the State Department said.

"The United States condemns this injustice and, while standing with the Iranian people in their struggle for freedom and dignity, remains committed to exposing the regime’s human rights violations."

Thousands of people in Iran face the risk of execution amid what Amnesty International on September 10 called a deepening execution crisis, with death sentences handed down after unfair trials and on vaguely worded charges such as enmity against God and corruption on earth.

The rights group said more than 800 people had been executed in 2025 so far, nearly double the pace of last year, and warned that thousands more remain under investigation or prosecution on capital charges, including drug-related offences and accusations of espionage.

Since the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom uprising, Amnesty said, Iranian authorities have “weaponized the death penalty as a tool of oppression”.

In June, following Israel’s airstrikes and a 12-day war with Iran, officials intensified calls for swift trials and executions for those accused of collaborating with Israel. Parliament has also advanced legislation to expand the use of capital punishment, pending approval by the Guardian Council.

The palace is a historic Pahlavi-era building built in 1937 by Reza Shah Pahlavi as a royal summer residence.

Iranian outlets reported the incident took place about a week ago. In the footage, a man with blood on his face lies on the ground while a guard holds a pepper spray canister. Eyewitnesses said guards used pepper spray against young women, creating panic among visitors.

The visitors were from the religious city of Mashhad, according to Entekhab News, citing a local journalist. A guard confronted one of the women at the entrance, and when her headscarf slipped inside the museum, he pushed her, sparking a fight that drew in police, the report said.

Social media users noted the recording date as September 11, days before the third anniversary of the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, detained in 2022 for alleged hijab violations.

Journalist and activist Masih Alinejad reacted on Instagram, writing: “This is the same government that stages concerts at night, executes by day, and assaults women over a few strands of hair.”

Wider crackdown

The video has renewed focus on violent enforcement of compulsory hijab, with calls for accountability and protection of women in public spaces. Confrontations have been documented before, with security forces, plainclothes agents, and civilians policing women’s dress. Rights advocates warn such practices intrude on privacy and fuel social violence.

Recent weeks have seen a wave of closures targeting businesses, cafés, hotels, and bookstores over alleged defiance of hijab rules. Rights group HRANA previously reported more than 30,000 women were stopped last year for non-compliance, and at least 536 commercial units were sealed.

Despite intensified state pressure, women’s acts of defiance persist. A video obtained by Iran International on September 16 showed a woman in Karaj standing unveiled atop a garbage container and shouting, “You have turned Iran into a prison.”

“After three months without any news, concern about the condition of Prof. Ahmadreza Djalali is greater than ever. The MPs therefore want to obtain more information from the Iranian ambassador,” parliament chair Freya Van den Bossche and committee chair Bogdan Vanden Berghe said in a joint statement on Thursday.

Djalali, a disaster medicine specialist affiliated with the Free University of Brussels, was detained in April 2016 during a professional visit to Iran. In 2017 he was sentenced to death on charges of espionage and complicity in the killing of two Iranian nuclear scientists, accusations he and his family have consistently denied.

Earlier this year, he suffered a heart attack while held in Tehran’s Evin prison. After the Israeli bombing of that facility, he was transferred with other detainees to the Greater Tehran Penitentiary. From there, according to accounts shared by his family, he was taken away separately. Since June 23, there has been no trace of him.

Pressure builds in Belgium

Last week, the committee and parliament speaker Van den Bossche met Djalali’s wife, Vida Mehrannia, to discuss his situation. Following that meeting, MPs unanimously agreed to summon the Iranian envoy.

Djalali’s case has drawn international concern, with European institutions and human rights organizations urging Tehran to halt his death sentence and release him on humanitarian grounds.

For Belgian lawmakers, his disappearance has heightened alarm not only about his health but also about the Iranian authorities’ treatment of dual nationals, many of whom remain imprisoned under contested charges.

Commentators disagree on labels—uprising, movement, revolution—but most accept that the protests of 2022 and their afterlife have marked a foundational rupture. They drew in multiple strata of society, altered daily life and public discourse and forced the Islamic Republic into retreats that once seemed inconceivable.

The chant “Woman, Life, Freedom,” first voiced at Amini’s burial in the town of Saqqez in Iran's Kurdistan province, condensed demands for autonomy, dignity and equality into three words that spoke across class and region.

A society long fragmented by divide-and-rule tactics has moved toward solidarity. Women and men, Kurds and Persians, Baluch and Azeris, urban and rural citizens stood together in 2022, building a pluralism not seen in recent memory.

The movement challenged not only gender discrimination but the state’s entire normative order, and it did so through radically non-violent means. In compelling the regime to cede ground—above all on the legally-mandated hijab—it achieved changes that would once have been described as revolutionary in themselves.

Inside homes, younger generations have renegotiated relations with parents in ways that blunt the state’s intrusion into private life.

The state’s grip on the streets has been broken; unveiled women now walk freely in Tehran, Mashhad, Shiraz, and countless smaller cities. Equality and bodily autonomy, once dismissed as Western imports, have moved to the center of Iranian discourse.

An even more draconian hijab and chastity law passed by parliament was frozen by Iran's Supreme National Security Council in May out of concern it would spark unrest.

Not easy

But the obstacles remain—and repression is still lethal.

In 2022 at least 552 protesters were killed, thousands more jailed, and executions have mounted since. The ruling elite retain an effective coercive apparatus, even if their confidence has been shaken by war and domestic unrest.

Economically, decades of corruption, sanctions, inflation and environmental degradation have pushed both state and society into survival mode.

Families channel scarce energy into endurance, leaving less room for organized protest. A potential revolution’s strength—its horizontal, decentralized nature—has also limited its ability to produce leadership or coherent organization.

Opposition forces remain fragmented, particularly in the diaspora, and coordination inside Iran has faltered as street protests ebbed.

Even so, the balance of change is striking.

In just three years, the movement has embedded demands that no future order can ignore. Its art, slogans, and public faces have entered common life.

No credible opponent of the regime positions themselves against it; all align with or inherit from it.

Hopes for future

Looking forward, much will depend on four interlinked tasks.

Daily civil resistance appears to be institutionalized, above all the unveiled presence of women in public life.

Economic grievances and livelihood protests have yet to be joined to clear political demands. If and when they are, a broader front against misrule would come to life.

Fragmented opposition forces need to converge on a clearer vision for post–Islamic Republic Iran. And international sympathy must be translated into targeted support that strengthens civil society without dragging it into destructive conflict.

The Islamic Republic’s institutions still stand, but their legitimacy has been stripped to the bone. Voter participation has sunk to historic lows, public trust has collapsed, and governance has narrowed to the sheer mechanics of survival.

Those in power are now fixated on endurance rather than service. In this vacuum, civil society advances on a different track.

Three years on, “Woman, Life, Freedom” remains the principal engine of transformation. Street protests may have wound down, but the changes in culture and imagination look irreversible.

The revolution is unfinished, but it endures in daily defiance, in a pluralist solidarity that defies the state’s order, and in a vision of citizenship rooted in universal rights.

That, already, is an achievement historic in scale—one whose ultimate destination may yet be a secular, democratic Iran.

“The claim was that Afghan nationals were consuming so much bread that they were pushing prices higher. Yet even after more than 1.5 million have left, the price of Sangak [a popular traditional Iranian bread] has risen fourfold,” the paper said.

“Why should bread prices climb 300 percent compared to 2024 when no major shortage is expected?” the paper asked.

A loaf of subsidized Sangak bread cost 5,000 rials (about $0.05) in September 2024 but now sells for 200,000 rials (about $0.20), marking a 300-percent increase in one year.

Iran’s state news agency IRNA says that in Tehran Sangak priced at 100,000–150,000 rials has effectively disappeared; most customers now pay 200,000–500,000 rials per loaf, with sesame-topped bread commonly around 300,000 (about $0.30).

Official rates diverge from street prices, which vary by neighborhood and bakery. A government task force set a 600-gram sangak at 76,000 rials (about $0.07), but shoppers say loaves at that price are smaller and poorer quality.

Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni argued in August that expulsions reduced bread transactions by six percent, calling this a government achievement. Lower demand would help stabilize supply, he said.

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  Rampant inflation may ignite bread riots in Iran, economist warns

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  Iran sees steep bread price hikes as inflation bites

Deportations tied to security rhetoric

The Islamic Republic intensified deportations in recent months, especially after the 12-day war with Israel, when authorities accused some foreigners, notably Afghans, of working with Mossad. Such allegations have been used to justify expulsions while deflecting blame for economic hardship.

Decades of economic mismanagement, sanctions, and currency collapse have eroded household purchasing power, leaving low-income families most exposed.

“If inflation remains unchecked … Iran could witness a bread riot,” economist Hossein Raghfar told the moderate outlet Rouydad24 earlier this month, warning that inaction could have consequences far beyond the economy.