Iran International
Rights groups and activists are sounding the alarm over what they describe as a widening campaign of pressure, arrests and intimidation against Iranian doctors and nurses who treated injured protesters.
Iran International has reviewed information from multiple sources inside Iran suggesting that at least 32 members of the country’s medical staff have been detained, with no public information available about the status of their cases.
Doctors who treated wounded protesters in cities including Qazvin, Rasht, Tabriz, Mashhad and Gorgan have been arrested or have gone missing, according to the reports.
Most of the reported arrests are said to have taken place after January 8, following the escalation of protests and the ensuing security crackdown.
‘Normalization of arrests’
Iran Medical Council chief Mohammad Raiszadeh confirmed that 17 of its members had faced judicial or security cases linked to the recent unrest, but insisted that none had been prosecuted for providing medical treatment and that no verdicts had been issued.
The Medical Council is formally a civil body but operates under heavy state oversight.
Raiszadeh, who is close to conservative political circles and previously led the establishment-aligned Basij Doctors Organization, said the council had followed up the cases with security and judicial authorities and had been told that none of the individuals were arrested solely for treating patients.
His remarks prompted criticism within the medical community.
Mahdiar Saeedian, editor-in-chief of a medical science magazine in Iran, wrote on X that the council’s position amounted to normalizing state pressure on healthcare workers.
“More unpleasant than silence is the normalization of arrests and pressure on medical staff by the Medical Council,” he wrote. “This is the result of fully turning a professional organization into a state-controlled body.”
Reported cases
UK-based outlet Kayhan London reported that doctors Masoud Ebadi-Fard Azari and his wife, Parisa Porkar, were arrested in Qazvin for allegedly treating injured protesters, adding that their whereabouts remain unknown.
Another reported case involves Golnaz Naraqi, a 41-year-old emergency medicine specialist at Hasheminejad and Shohada-ye Tajrish hospitals in Tehran, who was reportedly arrested at her home more than ten days ago.
Social media users have also reported growing pressure on medical staff accused of helping protesters anonymously.
In one account, a viewer message sent to Iran International said Farshid Pourreza, head of Golsar Hospital in Rasht, was dismissed and expelled from the hospital for supporting protesters and treating the wounded.
Health Minister Mohammad Reza Zafarghandi wrote on X that providing “the best possible medical services to every patient in a safe healthcare environment,” regardless of “any external factors,” was the health system’s top priority.
The remarks drew swift criticism online.
“As a colleague, I am waiting to see whether you remain loyal to your oath, or whether an ‘external factor’ stands in the way of it,” Nakisa Serafinincho, an Iranian doctor based in Romania, wrote on X.
Another user responded: “You can’t even protect medical staff. How can you talk about patient safety?”
Tehran’s unveiling of a towering statue depicting the Roman Emperor Valerian kneeling before pre-Islamic Persian King Shapur I has renewed criticism of the Islamic Republic’s appeal to nationalist sentiment following the June war with Israel.
For over forty years, the theocracy purged ancient Persian history from schoolbooks, replacing it with post-Islamic narratives. But after the 12-day conflict with Israel, officials have turned to the distant pre-Islamic past to rally a divided society.
From murals of ancient kings and soldiers to patriotic songs added to Shi’ite mourning ceremonies performed before Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Tehran now embraces imagery once deemed heretical by its own revolutionary ethos.
'Kneel before Iran' campaign
Tehran’s Revolution (Enghelab) Square was the scene of an unusual spectacle on Friday as officials unveiled a massive bronze statue depicting Roman Emperor Valerian kneeling in submission before Sassanid King Shapur I, commemorating Iran’s victory at the Battle of Edessa (260 AD).
The event was held under the slogan “Kneel before Iran,” part of what authorities describe as a campaign to project “national unity and historical pride” following the June war with Israel.
Tehran Mayor Alireza Zakani, a staunch ultraconservative, said on X: “Enmity with Great Iran can only end in kneeling before this historic nation.”
Municipal official Davood Goodarzi said the installation would be accompanied by visual displays depicting “other victories of Iranians over foreign aggressors,” including the defeat of British forces by local commander Rais-Ali Delvari, Mirza Kuchak Khan’s resistance against Russian troops, and Surena’s triumph over Rome at the Battle of Carrhae in 53 BCE.
The goal, Goodarzi said, is “strengthening concepts such as national dignity, social unity, and Iranian identity.”
The statue, he said, would remain temporarily at Revolution Square before being moved to a city gateway “where it will stand as the first emblem of Iran before diplomats and foreign visitors.”
Unveiled women were allowed to attend the unveiling ceremony—an uncommon scene at events organized by Tehran’s ultra-hardline municipality.
The turn to the pre-Islamic past
The sharp reversal also recalls remarks once made by Khamenei. In a 2011 speech, he asserted that “all the great military victories of this nation came after Islam,” dismissing pre-Islamic accounts as “things that are not documented.”
In 1987, he had said that prophets triumphed over kings such as Cyrus and that “nothing remains of these monarchs in history but names remembered with derision.”
Nevertheless, pro-government social media accounts have now gone so far as to circulate posters equating Khamenei himself with Shapur, showing him standing with a staff as Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump kneel before him. The caption reads: “You will kneel before Iran.”
'Hypocrisy'
Pro-government figures have hailed the move as a patriotic success. Conservative political reporter Hossein Saremi posted: “Today’s grand Iranian gathering showed that people and the state share one essence: Iran itself. Nothing can take our homeland away.”
Others, however, called the spectacle “hypocrisy.” Journalist Gholamhossein Pashaei wrote on X: “Every year you close Pasargadae to stop people from celebrating Cyrus Day, yet you unveil Shapur’s statue in Enghelab Square with drums and fireworks during Fatimiyya (mourning period)!”
Dissident commentator Hamid Asafi called the ceremony “a perfect snapshot of the Islamic Republic’s contradictions.”
On Telegram he wrote: “A week ago they closed Cyrus’s tomb out of fear of the crowds, and now they glorify Shapur in the same breath. The Islamic Republic fears living history but poses for selfies with its corpse.”
He added: “They know people no longer respond to rosaries and sermons. That’s why they’ve brought history back to the stage—in a controlled costume. If they can’t erase the past, they’ll try to own it.”
The irony deepened as UNESCO formally recognized Cyrus’s Charter as one of the earliest human-rights documents.
President Masoud Pezeshkian wrote on X: “Iran, the cradle of dialogue, justice, and coexistence, can still inspire peace today.”
Users swiftly replied, questioning how such pride could coexist with a government that blocks access to Cyrus’s tomb each year to those wishing to visit it on his birthday.
