More than 80 Iranian lawmakers called on the judiciary on Tuesday to urgently clarify and pursue a 2024 case in which chemotherapy drugs were allegedly stolen from a hospital in the northwestern city of Tabriz and patients were injected with distilled water instead.
The lawmakers, in a letter to judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei published by Iranian media, said more than a year after the alleged malpractice at Vali-Asr Hospital, officials have yet to provide a full public account of what happened or who was responsible.
They urged what they described as a “serious and transparent” investigation to protect patients’ rights and public trust.
The case first surfaced in Iranian media in October 2024, when local outlets reported that cancer patients at the privately run hospital had received distilled water in place of high-cost chemotherapy drugs that were allegedly diverted for sale on the black market.
Provincial police said at the time that a hospital aide was detained as a suspect and later identified three alleged accomplices, adding that the drugs had been moved to Tehran and sold in the informal market. According to East Azarbaijan police, 20 judicial case files were opened, including cases involving deceased patients’ families.
Prosecutors in Tabriz said the investigation began after a complaint was filed in November 2024, and that four people were arrested.
The provincial prosecutor’s office has said at least one patient whose medication was stolen died, prompting the case to be referred to a special murder unit, and that more than 30 complainants have registered claims so far.
Health authorities in Tabriz confirmed wrongdoing in the chemotherapy ward but said it involved “individual misconduct” rather than an institutional policy, and that the hospital itself reported the suspects to law enforcement.
Former vice president involved
In their Tuesday letter, lawmakers also raised concerns over a potential conflict of interest involving Shahram Dabiri Oskuei, the hospital’s main shareholder and director.
They said Dabiri had sought to frame the affair only as illegal drug sales and had publicly suggested the missing treatments did not affect patients’ life expectancy because some were in advanced stages of cancer.
The lawmakers said that Dabiri has announced his candidacy to head Iran’s Medical Council Organization, a body that can play a disciplinary role in suchcases, and said this could undermine confidence in the investigation.
DabiriOskuei, a physician and politician who served as Tabriz city council chairman and later as Iran’s vice president for parliamentary affairs in under President Masoud Pezeshkian, has not publicly responded to the lawmakers’ new call, according to Iranian media.
Pezeshkian fired him in April after images surfaced online showing the official on vacation in Argentina and en route to Antarctica during the Iranian new year holidays.
Separately, Iranian media reported a similar case in January at Tehran’s Shariati Hospital, where officials said a staff member was suspended after drugs were allegedly siphoned off and replaced with distilled water, with the matter referred to the courts.
In comments sent to Iran International, residents described daily life under heavy haze in blunt, personal terms.
A resident of Urmia in northwest Iran said schools in Urmia and nearby Salmas were closed for two days because of dirty air. “They made us homebound and depressed,” the person wrote.
An Iran–Iraq war veteran with pulmonary injuries from Karaj said he had no choice but to keep working despite the smog. “Pollution is poison for me,” he wrote, “but if you miss one day of work, you fall behind for ten days.”
In Tehran, another resident said the air felt unbreathable. “They’ve turned Tehran into a gas chamber. You can’t catch your breath.”
Several other people echoed the same theme. “Breathing has become difficult,” one wrote, while another said, “There is a gray fog every morning. It feels like something is weighing on my chest.”
Parents and people with existing illnesses said they were hit hardest. One mother wrote: “My 17-year-old daughter has shortness of breath because of the pollution, and the doctor prescribed a spray.”
A marketing worker who said they have a lung condition wrote: “I have a lung problem and I can’t even speak up. Talking leaves me breathless.”
Another person reported persistent symptoms. “Long headaches and breathing trouble,” the message said, while another wrote: “My eyes burn so badly I can’t keep them open.”
People blame industrial pollutants
Many users blamed a mix of vehicle emissions, industrial smoke and heavy fuel burning.
One message cited “non-standard gasoline, high-consumption cars, and mazut and diesel used for power plants and factories,” saying they produce “thousands of tons of toxic pollutants every day.”
A resident of Zanjan province, a smaller industrial area, alleged that nearby metal workshops release smoke at night. “The smoke looks like thick mist,” the person wrote, warning that the health damage “will show itself later.”
Another contributor said the problem had spread beyond big cities: “Pollution has reached a stage where even small towns and villages are not spared.”
Psychological toll
Alongside physical complaints, the comments conveyed mounting psychological strain.
“People’s moods are tense and abnormal, and it is affecting work and daily life,” one person wrote.
Another said, “We’re terrified of getting sick and not being able to afford treatment.”
Several linked the crisis to rising medical costs with one Tehran resident saying the pollution had triggered asthma-like allergies and that a prescription now costs millions of rials.
While some submissions used strongly political language, the core grievance was consistent: residents said they feel unprotected against a recurring hazard that closures and short-term restrictions have not solved.
The feature, rolled out in recent days, appears to flag which accounts are connecting from inside Iran, sparking online claims that some prominent users are posting via so-called “white SIM cards” – privileged, unrestricted mobile lines widely believed to be reserved for senior officials or security-linked bodies.
“A new feature on the X platform that displays users’ approximate locations has revealed that many Islamic Republic officials, pro-government activists, and affiliated journalists have access to privileged internet,” political activist Hossein Ronaghi said in a post on X.
“This means they are using unrestricted, unfiltered internet despite the censorship, through so-called white SIM cards.”
White SIM cards are special lines exempt from state filtering policies, enabling uninterrupted access to platforms blocked for most of the population, including Instagram, Telegram and WhatsApp.
Over the past year, officials have floated extending this kind of unrestricted access to tourists and some technical specialists, while political insiders and parts of the media are now widely understood to already use such lines.
Public anger quickly focused on high-profile figures whose X profiles showed Iran as their connection country, including former and current lawmakers, government’s spokeswoman and several media personalities – even as some of them had previously said online that they use VPNs.
Users argued that if those individuals were genuinely connecting through VPNs, their accounts would not still appear to be logged in from inside Iran.
They said the discrepancy undercut those figures’ past public frustration over internet filtering and raised fresh questions about whether they had access to privileged lines.
Critics also pointed to the accounts of former TV host Reza Rashidpour and news presenter Elmira Sharifi-Moghaddam, whose profiles displayed Iran as the country of connection.
Many accounts linked to pro-government figures, however, changed their region settings shortly after the controversy escalated.
Government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani, who had previously been asked whether she used an unrestricted line, said she relied on VPNs.
“I use filters like everyone else, and my son and daughter-in-law help me with the setups,” she said in response.
After screenshots circulated showing her apparent connection country as Iran, users accused her of being dishonest.
One user pointed to the location on the account of Amirhossein Sabeti, a lawmaker and a staunch supporter of internet filtering, and – mocking his use of an iPhone – wrote: “An American phone, an American app, white internet. What he prescribes for the public: ‘resistance economy.’”
Another user on X wrote: “These days the truth doesn’t stay hidden. It pops out through locations and exposes who is breathing under the shelter of a white SIM card and who is choking in the cage of filters.”
Technical doubts complicate the debate
Other users pushed back, posting screenshots showing X still listed Iran as their connection country even while they said they were using VPNs.
The digital-rights group IRCF echoed that point, warning that some widely used circumvention tools can leak signals that leave a user’s underlying Iranian connection partly visible.
“If you are using popular protocols like Warp or Mask, or serverless configurations, the Iran country tag can still appear because the underlying IP originates from Iran,” IRCF wrote in a post.
“This does not necessarily mean the person has white internet, though it can still be one factor in a broader assessment.”
An Iranian trainer at X called Shayan, identified by users as working on the platform’s infrastructure, also described “exceptions and bugs” that can affect the region display.
“If the location shows Iran without an alert icon, it usually means the user is reaching X with an Iranian IP.”
“I’ve seen people say that if someone uses Warp, Mask, serverless services or similar tools, their IP still shows as being in Iran and it’s not considered a white line. However, I don’t have precise information about this,” he said in a short exchange.
X itself has said that the Country/Region indicator may be imprecise and can be influenced by VPNs, proxies or default settings of local internet providers.
Politicized arguments escalate
The controversy quickly swept through Iran’s polarized social media sphere. Former government adviser Abdolreza Davari said that some anti-government accounts posting from inside Iran were themselves using white SIM cards.
Journalist Hossein Bastani, meanwhile, pointed to pro-government personas whose profiles appeared to connect from Iran despite presenting themselves as overseas supporters.
“One of these self-described Scottish independence activists turns out to be posting from Iran with public funds,” Bastani wrote.
Government-aligned users who dismissed critics as “bots” were met by others noting that many ordinary Iranians mask their IP addresses for safety.
Some also cited cases in which prominent officials’ connection locations later shifted to Middle East or West Asia after the backlash, suggesting changes to account settings rather than definitive proof of privileged access.
Broader frustration over filtering
The intensity of the reaction reflects a deeper public grievance with longstanding filtering policies.
President Masoud Pezeshkian promised relief during his campaign, but aside from the recent unblocking of WhatsApp and Google Play, wider restrictions remain.
Critics said the uproar has thrown a spotlight on the structural inequalities built into Iran’s digital system. Many argue that public anger is less about a single setting on X than about a long-running double standard.
One user, reacting to screenshots that seemed to show Communications Minister Sattar Hashemi connecting from Iran, wrote that people are furious because they are forced to live with filters, and officials step around them effortlessly.
Some activists used the moment to demand universal access rather than selective privileges. “Make all 90 million lines white,” one user wrote.
Forecasters said pollution could intensify through the end of the week in densely populated and industrial areas, warning that stagnant weather and temperature inversions could push air-quality readings in some places into the “very unhealthy” range.
The alert follows days of red readings in cities such as Tehran and Isfahan, highlighting a winter pattern in which vehicle exhaust, industrial output and heavy-fuel use combine with stagnant weather to drive smog spikes.
Tehran has recorded only six clean-air days so far this Iranian year (started on March 21), according to the capital’s Air Quality Control Company, and more than half of days have been unhealthy for sensitive groups – children, older adults, pregnant women and people with heart or lung disease.
With seniors making up about 8.4% of Tehran province’s population – roughly 1.2 million people – health experts warn that prolonged exposure during repeated pollution waves is elevating risks of respiratory and cardiovascular complications, adding to a crisis authorities have struggled to contain beyond temporary closures and driving restrictions.