Iranian social media users and news outlets have praised archaeologist Hamideh Choubak after Alamut Castle was added to UNESCO’s World Heritage List, highlighting her 25 years of work excavating and protecting the historic site.
The UNESCO listing has drawn renewed attention to Choubak’s role in identifying, documenting and conserving the fortress complex, located 120 miles northwest of Tehran, and preparing it for World Heritage status.
Alamut Castle and Related Fortifications became Iran’s 30th UNESCO World Heritage property when it was inscribed on July 26 during the committee’s 48th session in Busan, South Korea.
Images of Choubak crying as the decision was announced were widely shared online, with users praising her decades-long commitment while criticizing the prominence given to government officials at the ceremony.
Zeinab Karimian, an Iranian journalist who formerly worked for the official news agency IRNA, said the inscription was the result of Choubak’s 25 years of “perseverance, yet once again, the front row was filled by male officials who will serve as ministers or deputy ministers for only a few years, while she remained in a corner.”
“History forgets the names of those who occupy the seats, but not those who devoted their lives to this land.”
Many social media users also praised Choubak as a symbol of professional dedication, saying the UNESCO listing had finally brought overdue recognition to decades of largely unseen work.
“I wish people like Dr. Hamideh Choubak could be multiplied—people who love this country’s land and heritage,” communications specialist Negar Arab wrote on X.
The Asr-e Iran news website also published a tribute to Choubak titled “25 years of effort and love for Iran’s cultural heritage.”
The outlet said she had devoted much of her career to researching and protecting Alamut, describing the UNESCO decision as the culmination of years of work.
“Alamut’s inscription may be only a piece of news, but for a woman who devoted more than a quarter of a century of her life to this mountain and fortress, this moment marks the end of a long journey and the beginning of Alamut’s lasting place in global memory,” it wrote.
Twenty-five years at Alamut
Choubak began archaeological excavations at Alamut Castle in 2001.
Her research continued over 25 years and included 16 excavation seasons at the main fortress, surrounding areas and several associated castles.
Her team uncovered buried sections of the complex and identified the functions of different structures.
The excavations revealed the castle’s prison, main entrance, observatory and central courtyard.
Researchers also identified Molasara, believed to have been used by Hassan-i Sabbah and other Ismaili leaders, as well as storage facilities, irrigation systems and communication routes.
Studies of six neighboring castles indicated that the fortifications had operated as an integrated network.
Botanical research conducted during the excavations also challenged some common accounts about the use of hashish during Hassan-i Sabbah’s era.
Choubak said the site had been reduced to little more than a mound of earth after years of erosion and neglect when excavations began.
Only parts of its walls remained visible.
Over the following decades, the main structures were identified, documented, conserved and restored as part of efforts to prepare Alamut for UNESCO recognition.
Protecting Alamut from development
Choubak was also praised for opposing projects that could have damaged the site and its surrounding historical landscape.
She resisted plans to construct a road, a cable car and other developments within the protected area, and sought to prevent unauthorized land occupation and construction.
Choubak, who serves as director of the Alamut World Heritage base, has said the complex was more than a military fortress.
It was also a center of government, science and culture during the Ismaili period, she said.
She pointed to the presence of scholars including Nasir al-Din al-Tusi, as well as the castle’s library and scientific activities, as evidence of its broader cultural importance.
Asr-e Iran also highlighted Choubak’s archaeological work in the ancient city of Jiroft and the Jazmourian region.
Those excavations led to the identification of a mosque, bazaar, public square, cemetery, water-distribution network and industrial workshops.
Choubak, born in 1952 in Bushehr in southern Iran, is an archaeologist specializing in the Islamic period. She studied archaeology at the University of Tehran, completing her master’s degree in 1983 with a thesis on Islamic ceramics, before earning a PhD in Islamic archaeology from Tarbiat Modares University.
Her career has included work at Iran’s Archaeological Center, the Glassware and Ceramic Museum, the Tehran Cultural Heritage Center and the Research Institute of Archaeology.
Choubak has participated in and led numerous excavations across Iran, including at Rey, Tepe Hissar, Hormuz, Jiroft and Kish.
Iranians are increasingly borrowing money, delaying treatment and bargaining over medical bills as healthcare costs outpace household incomes, according to a new report by Eghtesad Online, while authorities say medicines and medical supplies are fully secured for Arbaeen, the annual pilgrimage commemorating the 40th day after the death of third Shiite imam.
The report describes a healthcare system where treatment increasingly begins not with a doctor's diagnosis but with offers to activate credit, pay in installments or use discount codes. From dental care and physiotherapy to psychotherapy, prescription drugs and online consultations, households are increasingly financing healthcare with future income.
"The issue is not just the growth of a few startups or advertisements by a few clinics; the issue is the shrinking liquidity of households, where a patient is forced to borrow from next month's income to pay for today's pain," the report said.
When treatment depends on payday
Conversations in doctors' offices, the report said, increasingly focus on affordability rather than treatment. Patients ask whether insurance will cover consultation fees or whether doctors can charge less, while physicians report seeing people who postpone laboratory tests, imaging scans and prescriptions after paying for the initial visit.
"Is this charged at the private rate? Doesn't insurance cover it? Can't you charge a little less?" are now common questions at reception desks, according to the report, which said patients bargain "not out of habit, but out of necessity."
Long-term treatment is particularly vulnerable. Patients stop physiotherapy midway, discontinue psychotherapy after only a few sessions or ration medication so it lasts longer, turning what the report called "a shortage of cash into a shortage of treatment."
Official figures for the current Iranian year have not yet been released, but the latest available data showed healthcare accounted for 8.7% of urban household spending and 9.8% of rural household spending in 2024.
Mental health becomes a luxury
Financial pressures are especially visible in mental healthcare, where patients increasingly align appointments with payday.
"Can I pay for this session at the end of the month?" is among the requests therapists now hear regularly, according to the report. Others ask, "My salary is deposited on the 10th. Can I pay for two sessions together?" or explain, "I can't come every week for now. I'll come twice a month."
The report said psychotherapy is intended to help people cope with anxiety, exhaustion and the pressures of daily life, yet "the cost of the session itself has become one of those anxieties." Social media users quoted in the report described calculating rent, loan payments, medicine and food costs before deciding whether they could afford therapy.
Dental care has become another symbol of the trend. Clinics increasingly advertise installment plans for implants, orthodontics and root canals, while online pharmacies and health platforms now offer credit for medicines and health-related products.
"Toothache does not wait for next month's paycheck," the report said, describing installment payments as both an opportunity to obtain treatment and a warning that essential healthcare costs are increasingly becoming future debt.
Officials warn of shortages
The financial pressures coincide with warnings from lawmakers about Iran's pharmaceutical sector.
Salman Es’haqi, spokesperson for parliament's Health and Treatment Committee, described medicine shortages as a "serious and critical" issue, citing sanctions, the recent war and disruptions to imports of pharmaceutical raw materials. He warned that unstable access to medicines could cost lives.
Other lawmakers have linked shortages to delays in foreign currency allocations and cash shortages affecting imports, while pharmacists have said weak oversight has allowed some medicines to be diverted from official distribution channels into the unofficial market.
Medical support for Arbaeen
Despite those concerns, officials have repeatedly emphasized that healthcare resources for Arbaeen will be fully available.
Jafar Miadfar, head of Iran's Emergency Organization, said authorities had no concerns about supplying medicines and intravenous fluids for pilgrims. He said around 300,000 units of intravenous fluids had been allocated and medicine stocks positioned at six border crossings ahead of the pilgrimage.
Earlier, Iranian Red Crescent chief Pirhossein Kolivand said medicines and medical equipment had been dispatched for Arbaeen and that five hospitals in Iraq along the Najaf-Karbala route would provide care for Iranian pilgrims.
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.
Zahra Behrouz-Azar said women account for more than 64% of applicants seeking university admission and more than 52% of the country’s university students.
However, she said the overall figures conceal a pronounced gender divide between academic disciplines.
Speaking at the unveiling of Iran’s annual statistical report on women, she said the gap is quite wide in technical and engineering subjects, where approximately 573,000 men graduated, compared with about 180,000 women, during the latest year covered by the report.
The imbalance reflects a wider international pattern. Women account for around 35% of graduates in science, technology, engineering and mathematics worldwide, a proportion that UNESCO says has remained largely unchanged for a decade.
Behrouz Azar said, however, that Iran’s gender gap appeared more pronounced and required closer research into the cultural, social and institutional forces shaping students’ choices.
“Which beliefs and cultural and social factors cause girls to gravitate less toward fields such as electrical engineering, computer science and some other technical disciplines?” she asked.
Behrouz-Azar said the disparity was particularly striking because Iranian women had established a strong presence in content production, the digital economy and freelance work, but were less likely to enter programming, coding and specialist areas of artificial intelligence.
She warned against the assumption that some disciplines were inherently “male” or that women did not need to enter them. Her office had raised the matter with the science minister and requested a detailed review of university admission procedures and other factors contributing to the disparity, she said.
The vice president did not allege that formal admissions rules explicitly excluded women from those subjects. She instead called on academics and researchers to examine the “hidden layers” behind the statistics, including whether social attitudes, education and career expectations discourage girls from pursuing technical fields.
Behrouz-Azar also linked women’s representation in technology to the development of artificial intelligence, saying researchers in AI ethics had argued that greater participation by women could contribute to systems that placed more emphasis on ethics and care.
Iran’s expansion of women’s access to university has not produced comparable participation in the labor market. World Bank data put the female labor-force participation rate at about 14% in 2025, while an International Labor Organization assessment reported a large and persistent divide between women and men in access to paid work.
That reflects not only personal choice but also decades of bureaucratic and social barriers limiting women's employment.
That disconnect means many highly educated Iranian women remain outside formal employment even as they make up a majority of the university population. International labor bodies have previously pointed to restrictions on women’s access to formal employment despite major advances in education.
