Iran’s Kayhan daily says UN snapback sanctions ‘more psychological than real’

The State Department’s Persian-language account on X said three women -- Somayeh Rashidi, Jamileh Azizi and Soudabeh Asadi -- died in recent days at Qarchak prison near Tehran after being denied medical care, adding their deaths followed that of Farzaneh Bijanpour in January.

It cited a statement by 45 women prisoners who condemned “inhumane treatment” of fellow inmates.

Washington also highlighted the case of Hossein Ronaghi, a well-known dissident jailed for criticizing the authorities, who is on hunger strike in protest at what it called “horrific prison conditions.”

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  UN experts condemn Iran’s ‘industrial-scale’ executions

The US said his health had sharply worsened due to denial of medication for chronic illness and demanded his immediate release.

Separately, it condemned what it described as the arbitrary detention and torture of Kurdish activist Pakshan Azizi, arrested with relatives in August 2023 and sentenced to death after what it called a sham trial.

“We call on the regime to halt her execution, free her and all political prisoners, and end its campaign of terror against its own people,” the statement said, adding more than 1,000 executions in Iran so far in 2025.

Marketed as Eternal Love, the show gathers young contestants in a luxury villa, reshuffles their romantic ties and pits them in staged challenges—following a formula that has proved commercially irresistible from Britain to Netflix.

But in Iran’s fraught cultural landscape, its rise is about more than entertainment: it reflects social shifts, strained relationships and the clash between audience demand and media censorship.

Global lessons

Reality shows worldwide have long faced serious criticism.

In the 2025 season of Love Island alone, Ofcom—the UK’s media regulator—received over 14,000 complaints.

Social pressure led to protective protocols: restricting contestants’ social-media use during broadcast, offering psychological support before and after filming and mandating training for television appearances.

In the US, lawsuits against Love Is Blind producers raised the question of whether contestants were mere “entertainment tools” or employees entitled to rights. The outcome was costly settlements and the entry of labor organizations into the fray.

The message is clear: reality TV is never “just entertainment”—mental health, labor rights and human dignity are at stake.

Added sensitivities

Eternal Love reproduces the same criticisms: commodifying emotions, privileging appearance over character, crafting heroes and villains and fueling collective judgment.

The main difference lies in its platform.

YouTube, unlike television, lacks a regulatory body and binding standards. That absence can intensify psychological and social pressure on participants—especially when their intimate relationships are laid bare to millions of viewers, including teenagers.

Supporters counter that a weary, anxious Iranian society deserves entertainment. They argue taboos must be broken and media should serve as a “mirror” to new realities of relationships.

There is some truth to this. Yet global experience shows that a mirror that sells also carries responsibility—for participants’ well-being and for the younger audiences exposed to such content.

Need for standards

This responsibility raises urgent questions for the makers of Eternal Love: is there a public care protocol, do contestants have access to counseling, are contracts fair and allow withdrawal without penalty, and has an age rating been defined?

Most of all, where is the line between reality and scripted drama, and don’t audiences have the right to know?

Eternal Love embodies two realities at once: society’s right to entertainment and taboo-breaking, and the dangers of crossing into unregulated territory.

If this genre is to persist in Persian-language media—and it likely will—clear standards are essential: transparent care protocols, contractual protections for participants, anti-harassment policies, social-media management during broadcast, age guidance and stronger media literacy.

Global precedents exist. It only takes the will to adopt and enforce them.

The joint report by the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center and independent news outlet IranWire describes how Turkish, European and North American firms, often through shadowy networks and front companies, supplied or enabled the transfer of shotguns, ammunition and paintball guns used to quell street unrest.

“Shooting protesters in the eyes is a deliberate form of torture meant to instill fear. Hundreds of cases involving teenagers and adults reveal a state-sanctioned pattern, with weapons supplied and repurposed through state-linked channels," it said.

"Targeting eyes and faces reflects a calculated effort to incapacitate protesters and create cautionary examples. These acts violate ICCPR Article 7, constitute crimes against humanity under the Rome Statute and breach domestic firearms laws."

The report argues that while the Iranian government has long imported arms despite sanctions, the 2022 protests marked a shift.

Security forces deliberately deployed so-called less-lethal weapons not as a means of crowd control but as tools of intimidation and punishment. Shotguns, pellet rounds, paintball guns and tear gas canisters were routinely fired at eyes, leaving many protesters permanently blinded or disfigured.

Doctors in Tehran and Kurdistan reported hundreds of eye injuries, suggesting the practice was widespread and state sanctioned.

Investigators documented 134 victims across 24 provinces, with an average age of 29. At least 114 were struck by pellets, nine by paintball rounds, and nine by direct hits from tear gas canisters.

The report said that these numbers represent only a fraction of the total, with many victims avoiding hospitals for fear of arrest.

'Complicity'

The companies named include Turkish shotgun makers Hatsan, Akkar and Sarsilmaz, whose Escort, Karatay and SAR-branded models were traced inside Iran.

European firm Cheddite was linked to ammunition identified by headstamps recovered from protest scenes. Paintball markers produced by Tippmann in the United States and DYE Precision in Canada were also diverted into the hands of police and Basij forces.

These products reached Iran through Turkish intermediaries such as Yavascalar YAF, as well as front companies tied to the FARAJA Cooperative Foundation and the Defense Industries Organization.

Some procurement was disguised under the cover of sports, with the Iran Paintball Association and other federations providing channels to skirt restrictions.

The report warns that such transfers may constitute corporate complicity in human rights abuses under international law. It highlights potential breaches of export control rules and exposure to secondary sanctions, particularly where companies made sales despite Iran’s documented record of violent crackdowns.

The authors call for urgent action, including classifying shotguns and paintball markers as dual-use products subject to strict end-user verification, closer scrutiny of financial intermediaries including crypto platforms and new pathways for victims to seek justice.

They argue that without accountability, foreign firms and evasive intermediaries will continue to arm Iran’s security forces with tools of repression.

Iran submitted Cause of Death: Unknown by Ali Zarnegar after a selection process that excluded films by independent and dissident filmmakers.

Among those left out was the critics’ favorite It Was Just an Accident, secretly filmed by internationally acclaimed director Jafar Panahi, who is banned from filmmaking.

Panahi's drama was in turn submitted to the Oscars by France while fellow dissident filmmaker Alireza Khatami’s The Things You Kill will represent Canada.

Shahram Mokri’s Black Rabbit, White Rabbit has also been selected by Tajikistan.

Panahi’s film, which won the Palme d’Or at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, was selected as France’s submission from a shortlist that also included Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague and Rebecca Zlotowski’s A Private Life.

Oscars rules allow submissions in the category for productions "largely in the hands of citizens or residents of the submitting country."

The plethora of films by Iranian filmmakers has stoked some criticism, however, as LA Times columnist Glenn Whip wrote in an article titled, "The Oscars’ international feature category is broken. But there’s no easy fix".

"All this leads to a question raised annually: Isn’t there a better way to choose movies for the Oscars’ international feature category, one that sidesteps the politics of repressive regimes and produces a list of films that are the best the world has to offer?" he wrote.

The global presence of Iranian directors highlights both the richness of Iran’s cinema and the challenges artists face under domestic repression.

Earlier this month, an association of independent Iranian filmmakers called on the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) to overhaul how it accepts films from countries under authoritarian rule, warning that the current system legitimizes state-controlled cinema bodies.

In a letter to the Academy, the Iranian Independent Filmmakers Association (IIFMA) said the Farabi Cinema Foundation, which oversees Oscar submissions from Iran, enforces censorship and sidelines independent voices at home and abroad.

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  Dissident Iranian filmmakers urge Oscars to reject state-linked submissions

Many Iranian talents, facing censorship and restrictions at home, have fled abroad. Panahi remains in Iran under travel and work restrictions, but his French residence gives him the chance to participate in the Oscar submission process.

Mohammad Rasoulof, whose The Seed of the Sacred Fig was Germany's Oscars submission last year, was previously sentenced to prison and now lives and works in Germany.

While Iranian cinema has global reputation for its exploration of social themes, independent filmmakers operate under a system of strict censorship at home.

The government requires script approval and screening permits by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, punishing those who challenge political or social taboos with bans, imprisonment or exile.

UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said new sanctions on more than 70 Iranian individuals and organizations linked to Iran’s nuclear program send “a clear message to Tehran” that Britain will “continue to take every step necessary” to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.

“Iran’s nuclear program has long been a serious concern to the international community, as a significant threat to global peace and security,” Cooper said in a statement on Tuesday.

“The international community has repeatedly given Iran a chance to provide credible assurances about the intent of the program, which they have repeatedly failed to do.”

She said that since Iran stopped complying with the 2015 nuclear deal in 2019, accumulating a stockpile of enriched uranium “48 times over the limit,” the UK and its European partners had tried to resolve the issue through negotiations, offering Tehran a final chance in July to avoid renewed sanctions.

“Iran chose not to engage,” she said.

“We will continue to pursue diplomatic routes and negotiations and we continue to urge Iran to comply,” she added.