Syria says Iran must acknowledge what it did to Syrians before ties improve

Marzban said she was arrested on May 17, 2023, while walking in a park, when two men and a woman approached her and told her she was being detained. After she resisted, two more men arrived and forced her into a vehicle, she wrote.

She said she was blindfolded and driven for about an hour to a location she later learned was an Intelligence Ministry detention facility.

According to her account, a female officer took her to a room for a search and ordered her to remove all her clothes. She said she was then wrapped in a chador while naked and taken by force to a basement cell.

Less than 10 minutes later, Marzban wrote, a masked man entered the cell and raped her despite her resistance, screams and protests.

“Time felt like years,” she wrote. “I don’t know, perhaps half an hour; perhaps less or more.”

Marzban said she was left bleeding on the floor of the cell after the assault.

She said two masked women and another woman dressed as a nurse entered the cell several minutes later and treated her injuries.

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  Leak Reveals Inner Workings Of Rape Cover-Up By Iranian Regime

Marzban said several men subsequently told her she would be released that night if she remained silent about what had happened. She was blindfolded again, driven away from the facility and repeatedly warned during the journey about the consequences of speaking out, according to her letter.

She said she was eventually left near her home at around 7 p.m.

Silence and a second arrest

Marzban said she initially told no one about the assault, including her spouse, who she said had lived for years with advanced Parkinson’s disease.

“After this incident, I became isolated, distanced myself from others and stopped going to the park for walks,” she wrote.

She was arrested again around midnight on January 14, 2026, and taken to the same Intelligence Ministry detention facility, according to the letter.

Marzban said the greatest source of torment during the 22 days she spent there was the fear that she would be sexually assaulted again.

She said she repeatedly objected to men entering the women’s detention area and was met with hostility from officials.

Marzban, who converted to Catholic Christianity, was later transferred to Evin prison. She was sentenced by a Tehran Revolutionary Court in June to nine years and eight months in prison on charges including “propaganda against the system” and “assembly and collusion against national security.”

She said she tried several times during her later detention to file a formal complaint over the alleged 2023 assault, but officials prevented her from doing so and threatened her into silence.

Seven months after her latest arrest, she wrote, the sight of men still causes her anxiety.

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  Iran’s security agents gang rape two nurses detained for aiding protesters

Previous allegations of sexual violence in detention

Marzban’s account adds to years of allegations by political prisoners and protesters who have described rape, sexual assault and other forms of sexual violence in Iranian prisons and detention centers.

Iran International reported in February that several women and girls detained during January’s protests said they had been sexually assaulted or raped in custody. Among them were a young woman and a 17-year-old girl who said they were raped at an unofficial detention facility operated by the Revolutionary Guards.

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  Weaponizing sexual violence: Iran's systematic abuse to suppress 2022 protests

Twenty-two female political and religious prisoners at Evin also wrote that year demanding an investigation into what they described as sexual abuse during body searches.

A year-long Iran International investigation published in 2024 found evidence that security forces had used sexual violence against protesters across several provinces during the 2022 demonstrations.

Victims have often said fear of retaliation and distrust of Iran’s judicial system deterred them from filing complaints, while those who did pursue cases frequently said their complaints went nowhere.

Marzban said she was speaking publicly in the hope that others who had suffered similar abuse would feel able to tell their stories.

“I hope that one day the seeds of our suffering will sprout,” she wrote, “and the tree of our demand for justice will grow strong.”

The push is coming from figures with real leverage, including inside the judiciary, and it has two aims: harsher enforcement of the dress code now, and an end to the suspension of Iran's strict Hijab and Chastity law.

Tehran Prosecutor Ali Salehi said on Monday the judiciary was preparing to move against cafes, restaurants and clothing stores for "committing acts contrary to public chastity and selling unconventional clothing."

On Thursday he went further, ordering judicial authorities to identify and confront what he called "organized and networked actors" promoting unveiling, whom he accused of spreading corruption in public places and offending public sentiment.

The closures were already underway. In recent weeks authorities have shut cafes, restaurants, shops and sports clubs in more than 15 cities, including Tehran, over hijab violations by customers or staff.

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  Iran seals dozens of businesses in renewed hijab crackdown

Women have also been blocked from obtaining motorcycle licenses, despite a government decision sent to police in February.

The reformist daily Shargh wrote on Wednesday that the resistance appeared to have little to do with law or road safety, and everything to do with what women would be wearing on the bikes.

'Hijab is a flag'

The pressure is louder on the street and online than in the institutions.

Hijab has moved to the front of the placards and slogans at the nightly pro-government rallies, according to social media users who follow them. Those gatherings drew some unveiled women in the early weeks of the war. They are far smaller now, and the crowd is almost entirely hardline.

Their target is often President Masoud Pezeshkian, who has not submitted the Hijab and Chastity law to government bodies for implementation, and whom demonstrators accuse of letting unveiled women multiply.

Pezeshkian has not objected to the law itself. The decision to freeze it was taken above him, out of fear that enforcing it would set off a new wave of anti-government protests.

Female hardliners have held their own gatherings in cities including Isfahan and Mashhad. Outside the governor's office in Isfahan, one placard carried a line attributed to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: "Unveiled women are our free soldiers."

Online, hardliners have been circulating footage of women walking, exercising, dancing and singing in shopping centers, cafes and streets, demanding that the authorities act against women they call "naked."

"Do you see the widespread wave of hijab tweets? The message is completely clear: the authorities have made up their minds to put an end to this situation. I can't wait for the operational phase to begin as soon as possible," one hardline user wrote.

The argument they make for themselves is that the veil is not a rule but a banner. "Hijab is the flag of the Islamic Republic and must not be allowed to fall," runs a common formulation.

"Hijab is not merely a secondary religious ruling; hijab is a flag," a hardline cleric posted. "If there is leniency over it, it will lead to the destruction of the family and the weakening of other religious laws." His patience, he warned, and that of others like him, could run out.

Other users have been keeping score. One noted that the same voices who spent the war demanding control of the Strait of Hormuz, guaranteed revenues from the waterway and a seat at the table of global oil pricing had "returned to factory settings," their attention back on women’s clothing.

A law too dangerous to use

The Hijab and Chastity law, finalized in 2024, is harsher than anything before it, and includes provisions that would let civilian groups confront women over their clothing.

It has never been enforced. Implementation was suspended over fears it would set off protests on the scale of those that followed Mahsa Amini's death, and the Supreme National Security Council's decision still stands.

The freeze carries the late supreme leader's authority. Interior Ministry spokesman Ali Zeynivand said this month that it was decided under Ali Khamenei and has not changed, and that Pezeshkian, too, supports it.

Meanwhile, the streets have moved. Unveiled women are far more visible than a year ago, and many now dress in ways that would have been unthinkable in public not long before.

Women's rights activists warn against reading that as the end of compulsory hijab. Women employed in government offices and institutions are still held to the dress code, and unveiled women are still turned away from some buildings and services unless they cover their hair, arms and legs.

Some users see the easing as a product of the war rather than a change of policy, and expect it to end with the fighting. "If the situation becomes more stable, I doubt the authorities will refrain from bringing their repressive forces back onto the streets to enforce hijab on women," one wrote.

Even among those who support compulsory hijab, some think a crackdown now would backfire. Morteza Panahian, a young cleric who has also criticized the refusal to license women motorcyclists, wrote that anyone blaming the spread of unveiling on the law's suspension had evidently never read the law.

"This law is so impossible to implement that, if it is promulgated, the pace of unveiling will double," he wrote.

The contract expired on July 29 after governing Iranian pipeline gas supplies to Turkey for 25 years. Signed in 1996, with deliveries beginning in 2001, it provided for up to 9.6 billion cubic meters (bcm) of gas annually through the Tabriz-Ankara pipeline.

Turkish sector sources said the war prevented the two sides from holding negotiations on a new agreement before the deadline, while existing gas flows could continue temporarily under force-majeure arrangements. No new long-term contract has been publicly announced.

The expiry is particularly significant because Iranian supplies were rising sharply immediately before the agreement lapsed. Turkey imported 4.536 bcm of Iranian gas in the first half of 2026, up 34 percent from a year earlier. In June alone, Iran supplied 883 million cubic meters, narrowly behind Azerbaijan and ahead of Russia among Turkey’s pipeline suppliers.

That complicates any assumption that the expiry automatically means the end of Iranian gas exports to Turkey. Instead, it has opened a period in which Ankara must decide how much Iranian gas it still needs and under what terms, while Tehran risks losing or reducing one of its relatively stable sources of export revenue.

The uncertainty has become more consequential as Washington intensifies economic pressure on Tehran. US President Donald Trump on Wednesday announced what he called an “Economic D-Day” against Iran, threatening economic consequences for countries whose financial institutions, businesses or government entities provide Tehran with what he described as economic lifelines.
Trump did not name Turkey or specify how the campaign would affect its purchases of Iranian natural gas. But the announcement adds another potential complication to any attempt by Ankara and Tehran to turn the temporary post-expiry arrangement into a new long-term agreement.

Iran’s gas vulnerabilities

Iran holds the world’s second-largest proven natural gas reserves, yet its export performance remains far below its potential. Production has long been constrained by aging fields, limited investment, insufficient access to technology and exceptionally high domestic consumption.

The South Pars field, shared with Qatar, remains central to Iranian gas production. Israeli strikes in March damaged processing facilities linked to the field and temporarily disrupted exports, although production was subsequently restored at several offshore platforms and gas was redirected to other processing facilities.

The damage has not yet been fully repaired. Iranian Oil Minister Mohsen Paknejad said in August that the war had knocked out about 95 million cubic meters of gas production and that reconstruction of four damaged refineries was continuing. He said the lost capacity was expected to return to the network by the end of September.

Rystad Energy estimates that repairing energy-related infrastructure damaged across the region could cost between $34 billion and $58 billion. Iran accounts for the largest number of affected facilities, with its repair bill potentially reaching $19 billion under the consultancy’s high-damage scenario.

These wartime losses compound problems that predate the conflict. Sanctions have restricted access to investment, technology and international markets, while domestic demand for electricity generation, heating and petrochemicals frequently takes priority over exports.

For Tehran, the Tabriz-Ankara pipeline has therefore been more than simply another commercial route. It has provided revenue, political leverage and a direct energy relationship with one of the region’s largest economies. A substantial reduction in exports to Turkey would leave Iran more dependent on limited pipeline sales to Iraq and Armenia, swaps and other short-term arrangements.

Turkey’s stronger hand

Turkey enters the post-contract period in a far stronger position than when the agreement was signed three decades ago.

Its annual gas demand generally ranges between 50 and 60 bcm, but its supply portfolio has become increasingly diversified. Russia remains a major supplier through Blue Stream and TurkStream, while Azerbaijan supplies gas through the Southern Gas Corridor. LNG has also become an increasingly important component of Turkish supply.

Turkey has expanded LNG import and storage capacity and signed long-term supply agreements with international producers, while domestic production from the Black Sea has continued to grow. Those developments give Ankara substantially more flexibility than it possessed when Iranian pipeline gas became a major part of its energy system.

That does not mean Iranian gas has become irrelevant. Turkish Energy Minister Alparslan Bayraktar said before the contract expired that Turkey could still need the Iranian pipeline for supply security. Turkish sector sources have also described Iranian gas as among the country's cheapest sources.

The combination gives Ankara considerable leverage. Iran still offers competitively priced pipeline gas delivered through existing infrastructure, but Turkey is no longer as dependent on that supply and has more alternatives with which to negotiate.

What happens after the expiry

Several outcomes remain possible. Turkey and Iran could eventually negotiate another long-term supply agreement, reach a shorter transitional arrangement, reduce contracted volumes or retain Iranian gas primarily as a source of additional supply during periods of high demand.

For Turkey, the calculation will involve not only price and physical supply but also reliability and geopolitical risk. Iranian gas has repeatedly been affected by winter shortages, infrastructure problems and now war, while tighter US economic pressure could create additional uncertainty surrounding payments and future contractual arrangements.

For Iran, the stakes are considerably higher. Reduced exports to Turkey would cut foreign-exchange earnings and further expose the gap between Iran’s enormous gas reserves and its limited ability to monetize them internationally.

The expiration of the old agreement therefore does not yet represent the end of the Iran-Turkey gas relationship. Gas continues to move, and both countries retain reasons to preserve the connection.

But the balance underlying that relationship has changed. Turkey has more suppliers, more infrastructure and greater bargaining power, while Iran faces damaged facilities, sanctions, war and renewed US efforts to restrict its remaining sources of foreign revenue.

The question is no longer whether the 25-year contract will expire. It already has. The question now is whether the gas trade that survived its expiry can be converted into another durable agreement — and on whose terms.

The poll was conducted by Esmail Saghab-Esfahani, Iran’s vice president and head of the Organization for Optimization and Strategic Management of Energy, who launched it on X on Monday and closed it two days later.

Under Iran’s current system, subsidized gasoline quotas are allocated to vehicles through fuel cards, with motorists able to buy a limited monthly amount at a lower price and additional fuel at a higher rate.

Saghab-Esfahani’s survey offered three alternatives: keeping the existing system while giving each citizen an additional tradable 30-liter quota; selling gasoline above current quotas at 870,000 rials per liter; or limiting supply to domestically produced gasoline without additional imports.

About 50% favored a model that would maintain existing quotas while allocating an additional 30 liters of gasoline per person based on national ID numbers. The additional quota could be transferred or sold to others at a mutually agreed market price.

Another 34% supported supplying gasoline beyond existing quotas at about 870,000 rials per liter, while 15% favored supplying gasoline in line with domestic production without additional imports.

Slightly more than 14,000 people took part. Critics, however, questioned whether the results could be considered representative of public opinion, citing the relatively low use of X in Iran, particularly in rural areas.

Iran’s gasoline imbalance is estimated at about 10% of consumption, according to the Khorasan newspaper, which has argued that the problem needs to be addressed but warned against using a policy that could create a much larger economic and social shock.

The economic newspaper Donya-e-Eqtesad argued that the results should not be interpreted as a definitive expression of public support for gasoline reform.

“People have shown greater preference for the option that, compared with queues at gas stations and 870,000-rial gasoline, imposes less direct harm on them,” the newspaper wrote. “This difference is important, because the policymaker should not conclude from the higher vote that society has accepted all aspects of the plan.”

The newspaper also questioned why the survey did not include a fourth option combining non-price and structural measures, such as reducing the use of fuel-intensive vehicles, expanding imports of hybrid and electric cars, improving fuel-efficiency standards, developing public transportation, combating smuggling and gradually reforming the auto industry.

It also argued that shifting gasoline quotas from vehicles to individuals would not necessarily reduce consumption if fuel remained cheap and vehicles continued to be inefficient. At best, it said, the measure could make the distribution of subsidies fairer and reduce smuggling or misuse of some fuel cards.

The methodology also drew criticism from users who participated in the discussion. Mohammad Reza Felfalani, a civil-society activist working on water, energy and environmental issues, wrote: “It is unfair to ask people to make a decision or assessment with this amount of data. If you yourselves are designing a plan with this amount of data, give us the right to worry about Iran’s future.”

Financial markets analyst Mohammad Shahrestani warned that none of the proposed options would be cost-free under current economic conditions.

“None of these ideas will be without cost under the current economic and livelihood conditions; a cost that may be irreparable,” he wrote, challenging those who oppose negotiations to offer a solution to the fuel problem that they can implement.

Another commenter warned that any gasoline reform would risk failure unless the government first explained how it intended to control the prices of goods and services that could rise as higher transportation costs feed through the economy. The user warned that such a plan could become vulnerable to unrest on the scale of the January protests.

Hardliner roots of the proposal

Saghab-Esfahani says he does not belong to any political faction, but his positions have often been close to those of conservative hardliners such as former presidential candidate Saeed Jalili. His appointment by President Masoud Pezeshkian in November 2025 drew criticism from reformists.

He has personally shown greater support for a model linking gasoline rations to individual citizens rather than vehicles. The model is among the policies previously promoted by Jalili and featured prominently in his campaign during the last presidential election.

That connection has led some critics to accuse Saghab-Esfahani of framing the survey’s choices in a way that would produce a result favorable to his preferred model and to political groups aligned with him.

One commenter accused the government of trying to impose a proposal developed by supporters of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Jalili over the past eight years.

“You ignored the criticism of every expert and now want to topple the Pezeshkian government by forcing this plan through, and then you stage a survey?” the user wrote.

Another argued that the wording of the choices was designed to steer respondents toward the government’s preferred option, warning that giving every citizen a tradable gasoline credit could become the Pezeshkian administration’s “Achilles’ heel” during wartime.

A further commenter said none of the proposed options could solve the problem and accused the government of using the poll to seek legitimacy for a predetermined policy.

Warnings over a price shock

Many Iranian experts and media outlets acknowledge the need to address the gasoline imbalance while warning against a sudden price shock. The central disagreement is whether consumption should be controlled through sharp price increases or through a combination of quotas, gradual price adjustments, demand management, public transportation and supply-side reforms.

The Khorasan newspaper, in an editorial titled “Do Not Perform Surgery for a 10% Deficit,” argued that if the core problem is an imbalance of roughly 10% between gasoline production and consumption, the government should not resort to a policy capable of creating a much larger economic and social shock.

“The dimensions of the potential consequences may be much greater than the original problem,” the paper argued.

The warning carries particular weight in Iran, where previous fuel-price increases have triggered unrest. A gasoline price increase in 2019 led to widespread protests that were violently suppressed, while an earlier increase in 2007 sparked riots in several parts of the country, including Tehran.

For the Pezeshkian administration, the challenge therefore goes beyond how gasoline quotas are allocated. It must address a persistent fuel imbalance without allowing a reform intended to ease pressure on the energy system to become a new source of economic hardship, political conflict and social unrest.

Espad died on Aug. 17 after a two-year battle with cancer. Born on March 11, 1989, she had worked with Iran International for eight years before stepping away from media work two years ago because of her illness.

“Farahnaz, beautiful daughter of Iran, we thank you for all the moments when your voice was a refuge and hope for the people,” one person wrote in a message sent to Iran International, adding that her name and kindness would remain alive in people’s hearts.

Iran’s domestic media is tightly controlled by the state, while independent journalists face censorship, arrests and restrictions. Many journalists have left the country, and Persian-language media based abroad have continued to serve audiences inside Iran despite efforts by authorities to block access to their broadcasts and websites.

The messages and videos sent after Espad’s death reflected not only grief over a familiar journalist, but also wider feelings of separation, exile and repeated loss among Iranians.

One person described Espad as a “kind and capable presenter” whose death felt like losing a member of their own family, “like a sister.”

Another said the news had left them “shaken” after years of watching the work of an “honorable and professional” journalist.

For others, her death evoked the experience of separation from Iran.

One person wished Espad’s family patience and wrote: “Hoping for a day when no one is forced to live in exile, far from their loved ones.”

Another wrote: “Hoping that nothing bad ever happens again to any of my compatriots. Hoping for good days. Long live Iran.”

A message from Firuzkuh, east of Tehran, connected Espad’s death with hopes for political change.

“Once again, another person has left us without seeing the freedom of Iran and the Iranian people,” it said.

Others called Espad a “daughter of Iran” and remembered her as compassionate toward the Iranian people, courageous and sincere, saying her work would not be forgotten.

A person from the northeastern city of Mashhad offered condolences to Espad’s family and colleagues and wrote: “Her honorable voice will remain in our memories.”

Another, from the northern city of Amol, described her as “a fighting, kind and selfless woman” and wished her eternal peace.

One message placed Espad’s death in the context of executions, killings and repeated loss in Iran, saying that losing her in exile felt no less painful to them than losing those killed during anti-government protests.

For many of those who wrote in, Espad’s death became intertwined with a wider sense of loss among Iranians at home and abroad, shaped by exile, repression and years of political upheaval.

The tributes were ultimately as much about what Espad represented to those who watched her as they were about her years on air: a connection to a country from which many Iranians have been separated, and hopes for changes that some fear they may never live to see.