Germany limits Tehran embassy services as it urges citizens to leave Iran
Germany has scaled back operations at its embassy in Tehran while again urging its citizens to leave Iran, the German Foreign Ministry told Iran International on Friday.
Germany has scaled back operations at its embassy in Tehran while again urging its citizens to leave Iran, the German Foreign Ministry told Iran International on Friday.
The embassy remains open, but its consular and visa services are currently operating only on an emergency basis and with limited capacity, the ministry said.
The ministry said it was closely monitoring the security situation in Iran and remained in regular contact with its embassy in Tehran, adding that the safety of embassy staff was its top priority and that protective measures were being continuously reviewed and adjusted.
It said the embassy was currently able to provide only limited consular services and was not fully staffed because of restrictions imposed by Iranian authorities on diplomatic accreditations.
The ministry also reiterated Germany's travel warning for Iran and again urged German citizens to leave the country. It encouraged German nationals in Iran to register with the ELEFAND crisis preparedness system to receive security alerts and emergency notifications from the embassy.
The ministry said Germany's travel warning and recommendation that its citizens leave Iran, first issued several years ago, remained in force and would continue to be reviewed in light of developments.
Café owners describe a renewed campaign against businesses associated with a different urban lifestyle.
Among the cafés forced to close in recent days were some located along Tehran's central streets. Some had previously been shuttered over allegations they failed to enforce Iran's compulsory hijab rules.
The latest wave followed public appeals by Friday prayer leaders for tougher action.
“The situation regarding hijab in society is not acceptable,” Mohammad Reza Naseri, the Friday prayer imam of Yazd, said on July 17, urging officials and cultural institutions to confront what he described as “corruption and indecency.”
In the northern city of Rasht, Friday prayer imam Rasoul Falahati praised pro-government nighttime gatherings and argued that confronting what he called “organized unveiling” should also involve public participation. Falahati urged the government and parliament to fully implement Iran's hijab law.
Days later, café owners in central Tehran found their businesses sealed.
'They saw us as the odd ones out'
The owner of a café on Sanaii Street in Tehran, which was closed on July 20, told Iran International that unusual pressure had built over recent weeks, saying organizers of nighttime gatherings appeared to view cafés such as his as incompatible with the atmosphere they wanted to create.
According to the owner, plainclothes men carrying radios and firearms visited the café twice in the days before the funeral of Ali Khamenei, the slain leader of the Islamic Republic, describing the business, its staff and customers as “a stain of shame” and “the enemy's foot soldiers.”
“One of them said our city was preparing for the funeral of the leader, yet you are here engaged in pleasure, music and corruption,” the owner recalled.
He said he warned employees that closure appeared imminent.
A young woman who managed the dining area at another shuttered café on the same street said rumors of inspections had circulated the previous day, but the conduct of officials still came as a shock.
“The way they stormed in and behaved was so aggressive and disrespectful that everyone was stunned,” she said. “Some colleagues did not even have time to collect their personal belongings before the café was closed.”
Wartime images told a different story
The closures stand in sharp contrast with scenes seen only weeks earlier.
During the 40-day war and its aftermath, women without compulsory hijab appeared openly at pro-establishment nighttime gatherings and at Ali Khamenei's funeral. State media interviewed some of them, and their images appeared in official coverage.
Religious singers also adopted a noticeably different tone.
“A woman with loose hijab who has come to the square is the light of our eyes and the daughter of our country,” one speaker said during a gathering.
The imagery contrasted with years of rhetoric from parts of Iran's political and religious establishment portraying women who reject compulsory hijab as posing an ideological challenge to the Islamic Republic.
The difference appeared less a change in official thinking on compulsory hijab than a reflection of changing political priorities. At a moment when authorities sought to project national unity and broad public participation, women with different styles of dress became part of the official narrative. As that period faded, so did the visible tolerance.
The pattern extended beyond dress.
State media also featured rappers performing songs supporting the system and Iran's armed forces, despite rap music facing years of official restrictions and criticism.
The contrast illustrated a broader pattern. Different forms of dress, music or cultural expression appeared acceptable when reinforcing an official political message but faced restrictions once they existed outside that framework.
Pressure spreads beyond Tehran
The closures in central Tehran form part of a broader campaign affecting businesses across Iran.
On May 19, the historic Ameri House hotel complex in the central city of Kashan was closed over what authorities described as failure to observe mandatory hijab rules.
On June 15, the judiciary's Mizan news agency reported that prosecutors ordered a Tehran café closed and opened a criminal case against its managers after images circulated online from an event authorities said violated legal and religious standards.
The campaign expanded elsewhere.
On July 2, the public prosecutor of Kohgiluyeh County announced the closure of 10 cafés and teahouses in Dehdasht for allegedly failing to observe religious standards.
Less than three weeks later, the Mohseni Mansion, a restored historic Qajar-era property operating as a hotel and restaurant in the southern city of Behbahan, was shut over what officials described as optional hijab among some customers and the playing of music.
Authorities in Lorestan, Ardebil and Aran va Bidgol have also announced closures of businesses over accusations including unveiling, failure to observe Islamic standards, moral violations.
Competing accounts
Officials and business owners offer different explanations for the closures.
Tasnim News Agency, which is affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, rejected suggestions that the cafés had been targeted over morality enforcement. The businesses, it said, were closed solely because of licensing and trade violations and that the action had “no connection” to moral security.
Café owners dispute that account.
They describe earlier warnings, visits by plainclothes personnel, scrutiny of customers' clothing and growing pressure surrounding the atmosphere inside their businesses. Their accounts differ sharply from the official explanation and leave unanswered questions about the principal reason behind the closures.
For many owners, the consequences extend beyond politics. Many cafés had already struggled amid economic stagnation, falling purchasing power, internet disruptions and a sharp decline in customers. Sudden closure leaves employees without wages, rent unpaid and businesses facing taxes and debts despite being unable to operate.
"The country will certainly face significant unrest among workers by the end of the summer if the current trend continues," Akbar Shokat, executive secretary of the Workers' House in Qom province, told the ILNA news agency.
Many workers, according to ILNA, who were temporarily laid off during the conflict and turned to jobs such as ride-hailing to make ends meet have since been recalled to factories, only to find that wages for June and July remain unpaid. Having returned to work, they are also no longer eligible for unemployment benefits.
Most Iranian workers, Shokat said, already live below the poverty line after years of wage suppression, leaving them with little capacity to absorb further economic pressure.
Employers accused of withholding wages
Shokat accused some employers of exploiting the current economic conditions by reducing production and delaying wage payments despite having sufficient raw materials and finished goods in storage.
"Some employers are taking advantage of the current situation," he said, adding that businesses which accumulated wealth over previous decades had a moral responsibility not to shift the burden of the crisis onto workers.
He urged the government to introduce emergency economic measures, including customs exemptions for imported raw materials and bank financing for manufacturers, to help companies continue operations and prevent further wage delays.
Shokat also called for legal action against employers who withhold workers' wages while stockpiling goods.
Strikes spread across sectors
ILNA has reported a growing number of labor protests in recent weeks.
On June 23, the agency reported that 1,600 workers at Tabriz Machinery Group stopped work after two months without pay, demanding payment of wages owed for May and June.
Earlier, healthcare workers in Islam-Abad-e Gharb of Kermanshah province gathered to protest low wages, delayed payments and worsening living conditions, criticizing what they described as unequal pay across Iran's health system and incomes that remain well below the poverty line.
Economic pressures deepen
The labor concerns come as Iran's economy faces mounting pressure following the conflict with the United States. The rial has weakened sharply against foreign currencies in the open market, with the US dollar trading above 1.91 million rials.
Separately, Saeed Shojaei, deputy planning minister at the Ministry of Industry, Mine and Trade, told the Ettelaat newspaper on July 15 that financial losses from electricity shortages affecting industry are expected to increase from about 3,030 trillion rials in the 2024 to 4,730 trillion rials in 2025.
Shojaei warned that if current conditions persist, unemployment could increase during the second half of the year.
The trial in federal court in Buffalo will determine whether Hadi Matar acted independently out of religious anger or carried out the attack in response to the fatwa issued by Iran’s first Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini and in service of Lebanon's Hezbollah, according to the New York Times.
"He wanted everyone to know he was doing this in the service of Hezbollah," federal prosecutor Timothy C. Lynch said in his opening statement. "He wanted to do it so he could be perceived as an Islamic martyr."
Matar, 28, faces charges of providing material support to a designated terrorist organization and committing an act of terrorism transcending national boundaries. If convicted on all counts, he could spend the rest of his life in prison.
He was convicted last year in a separate New York state case of attempted murder and sentenced to 25 years in prison for the August 2022 attack.
Prosecutors point to Iran contact
According to the New York Times, federal prosecutors say Matar contacted a person identified as Kamyar in Iran in May 2022, about three months before the attack.
Prosecutors say Matar wrote that he knew where to find Rushdie but was unsure "how to do it." They said he then asked whether the fatwa against the author remained valid and proceeded with the attack after receiving confirmation.
Ruhollah Khomeini, issued the fatwa in 1989 after the publication of The Satanic Verses, a novel that prompted protests from many Muslims over its depiction of a fictionalized version of the Prophet Muhammad.
Hezbollah evidence disputed
Prosecutors, Lynch said, will present text messages, notebook entries, propaganda videos and other evidence that they argue shows Matar was motivated by Hezbollah and Iranian leaders.
Matar, according to prosecutors, compiled propaganda videos titled "Rushdie Fatwa 1.6" that included a 2006 speech by former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah condemning cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad. They also said Matar sent the videos to others.
Prosecutors further say Matar used the name and birth date of a Hezbollah fighter on a fake identification card and kept notes weighing the advantages and disadvantages of killing Rushdie.
Defense lawyer Nathaniel L. Barone II rejected that his client acted on behalf of Iran or Hezbollah.
"The government didn't know what Hadi Matar's mental state was at that time," Barone told the court.
Before the trial, Barone described Matar as a religious man angered by The Satanic Verses, arguing the attack stemmed from personal outrage rather than direction from a foreign government or militant group.
Rushdie expected to testify
Rushdie is expected to testify this week about the attack, as he did during the state trial last year.
The author was stabbed more than a dozen times while preparing to speak at the Chautauqua Institution in western New York about writers living in political exile. He suffered severe nerve damage and lost sight in one eye.
Prosecutors must persuade jurors that Matar did more than act on personal religious conviction and instead knowingly provided support to Hezbollah, a key legal distinction that could determine whether the terrorism charges succeed.
The trial is expected to last about two weeks.
