Iran sentences 20-year-old blogger to more than 13 years in prison

As millions of students returned to classrooms this month, Iran's paramilitary Basij appeared prominently in elementary schools as authorities rolled out an education campaign infused with military and ideological messaging.

Iran's Education Ministry announced over the summer that material related to the recent war and the country's military and nuclear capabilities would be incorporated into educational content.

The push comes at a precarious moment for the Islamic Republic, following war, economic turmoil and nationwide unrest—and four years after schoolgirls became some of the youngest and most visible participants in the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising.

“Iran is obviously right now at sort of a crossroads,” historian Arash Azizi told Iran International, as the Islamic Republic struggles to command the loyalty of generations born decades after the 1979 revolution.

“We're talking about much younger people, people under 13,” Azizi said, adding that the Basij had some involvement in primary schools during the early years after the revolution, but considerably less in recent decades.

The memory of Woman, Life, Freedom

Historian Shahram Kholdi said the increased attention to schools cannot be separated from what happened inside them four years ago.

“We should remember that during the Woman, Life, Freedom movement we saw a huge wave of solidarity with this movement, especially in girls' schools in Iran,” he said.

The nationwide protests in January served as another warning. “It was again a wake-up call, harkening back to Woman, Life, Freedom, that they have to control schools,” Kholdi said.

After the death of Mahsa Jina Amini in morality police custody in September 2022, protests spread into schools.

Videos showed schoolgirls removing their headscarves, chanting against the Islamic Republic and removing or defacing images of its leaders. Some were barely teenagers.

The protests turned schools into one of the most visible arenas of youth opposition to the Islamic Republic.

Kholdi argues that the significance of a Basij presence extends beyond ideological instruction. Schools can provide authorities with greater visibility into students and, through them, their families at a time of considerable social and economic discontent.

The Basij's role in policing students also has a history. Kholdi recalled his own high-school years, when Basij members searched students' backpacks each morning for what he described as “contraband cultural material.”

What stands out now, he said, is how far down the age ladder the attention appears to be moving.

The Islamic Republic's concern about losing younger Iranians predates the latest unrest and war. In a January 2025 interview with Iran International, Iran specialist Holly Dagres said the establishment was already looking beyond an increasingly alienated Generation Z.

“They've been actually looking at the next generation, which is Gen Alpha,” she said.

‘North Korea scenario’

Azizi sees the push into younger age groups as part of a broader argument within the establishment over how to respond to a society that has moved away from some of the ideological positions that have defined the Islamic Republic.

“The regime has been trying to sort of bolster its base amongst the youth because it's lost them and it knows they're the future,” Azizi said.

One tendency, he said, favors a return to a more rigid and intensely ideological state—what he described as a “North Korea scenario”—drawing on mass mobilization of its remaining supporters to reinforce mandatory hijab and Islamist social rules.

In that vision, the Basij becomes an instrument not only for building support but for imposing what Azizi called “societal submission.”

But he said such an approach carries its own risk.

“If the regime wants to go toward bringing back Iran to the 1980s and then North Korea,” Azizi said, such policies could “lead to more social protests and social resistance.”

That tension is now reaching further into Iran's classrooms.

During Woman, Life, Freedom, schoolgirls who had spent their entire lives under the Islamic Republic turned some of those classrooms into places of protest. Four years later, the children entering elementary school belong to an even younger generation.

Hakami said Starlink had fundamentally changed that equation. “Our control over cyberspace is no longer based on our domestic network. It is based on Starlink,” Hakami said.

He said officials had warned for more than two years that wider use of the satellite internet service could eventually render existing methods of controlling communications ineffective, but had failed to produce an adequate policy response.

“I sometimes joke that we might as well turn the Ministry of Communications and the Supreme Council of Cyberspace into amusement parks, because they will no longer serve any purpose,” Hakami said.

Iran has repeatedly restricted internet access during periods of unrest. Hakami said the government’s response has grown progressively more restrictive, from blocking a single platform in 2017 to shutting down internet access during the 2019 protests, blocking two major platforms after the 2022 protests and ultimately disconnecting the entire network during the bloody crackdown on nationwide protests in January 2026.

Starlink poses a challenge to that approach because its terminals connect to satellites rather than relying on Iran’s domestic telecommunications network.

Hakami said even measures such as mandatory mobile phone registration could become ineffective with Direct-to-Cell technology, which allows ordinary mobile phones to connect directly to satellites.

“I don’t want to create ‘Starlink-phobia,’ but nothing will remain of our ability to control cyberspace,” he said.

Arrests and seizures
Iranian authorities have intensified their crackdown on Starlink as its use has expanded. Iran’s Economic Security Police said in August that authorities had seized 997 Starlink devices and related equipment and arrested 163 people during the four months through July. Police also impounded 15 vehicles carrying the equipment.

The crackdown has extended to individual users and sellers. Two men from Bukan were sentenced to two years in prison each for buying and selling Starlink equipment.

Iran also criminalized unlicensed satellite internet equipment under legislation adopted in 2025. The law prohibits the use, possession, purchase, sale and import of devices such as Starlink and provides for prison terms and confiscation. It permits the death penalty for specified activities involving the equipment when carried out for espionage or to confront the state and the perpetrator is deemed an enemy force.

Amnesty International said Iran’s Intelligence Ministry announced in March that “hundreds” of Starlink devices had been seized. The rights group said authorities had portrayed the use of alternative satellite connections as potential espionage or collaboration with hostile states and threatened users with prosecution.

Death after Starlink-related arrest
The crackdown has also been linked to a reported death in custody.

Hesam Alaeddin, a 40-year-old man detained in Tehran over his alleged use of Starlink equipment to bypass an internet blackout, died after he was severely beaten by government agents, a source familiar with the case told Iran International in May.

Alaeddin had gone to a hospital to check on his brother, Hamid, who had been shot during protests, when some of his electronic devices were seized, according to the source.

A week later, he went to retrieve the devices and was arrested. Agents took him to his home for questioning and a search, where they severely beat him with various objects and he died, the source said. Authorities concealed his death and continued to treat him as a living detainee before eventually telling his family to collect his body.

Amnesty International later documented Alaeddin’s death but said the precise timing and circumstances remained unclear. The rights group said his arrest was connected to an investigation involving his brother and alleged possession of a Starlink device.

Despite the enforcement campaign, Hakami said Starlink had already reached a significant level of use in Iran and questioned whether existing policies could keep pace with the technology.

“Tell me: What policy have we adopted to protect the country against Starlink?” he said.

Informed sources described the section known as “Alef-Ta” as a place used for interrogations, holding prisoners before execution and, in some cases, applying additional pressure.

“Some prisoners put their faces close to the gap beneath the cell door so they can breathe,” one informed source said.

The ward holds some political prisoners alongside people accused of violent crimes and a number of clerics. Alireza Sepahi, a January protest detainee sentenced to death in the case known as the Alikhani case, has also been transferred there.

The Alikhani Square case stems from anti-government protests in Isfahan on January 8, during which authorities said four members of the security forces were killed.

Twelve protesters were sentenced to death, drawing concerns from rights groups and UN experts over due process and fair-trial standards. At least five had been executed by August, including Abolfazl Sepahi and Amirhossein Safari, who were publicly hanged in Alikhani Square on July 28.

Windowless cells

The section consists of rooms originally designed for solitary confinement, with each cell measuring about eight square meters.

The cells have no windows or adequate airflow and rely on a single ventilation fan that is sometimes switched off. Despite being designed for one person, several prisoners are sometimes held in the same cell, leaving insufficient room to sleep normally.

Prisoners receive two dirty blankets, while a shower and toilet without a separating door or wall occupy a significant portion of each cell. Using water further increases humidity inside the enclosed space.

Access to fresh air can be limited to about 15 minutes once a week. Prisoners are blindfolded and taken to the roof, where only the sky is visible.

Lights inside the cells remain on continuously. With no windows or clocks, prisoners can struggle to distinguish day from night. The central sewage system, which operates at around 6 a.m. and 6 p.m., can become one of the few indications of time.

Prisoners also have no access to phones, television, a prison shop or facilities for heating food. Sources said poor-quality food and the inability to reheat it have led to repeated cases of food poisoning.

'Cables and metal rods’

Prisoners can be removed from their cells for interrogation several times over a 24-hour period, sources said.

Sources described prisoners being beaten with cables and metal rods during interrogation and returning to their cells with injuries to their legs, mouths and teeth. Iran International also received accounts of interrogators pulling out prisoners’ fingernails.

Iran International reported on September 9, citing a judicial document, that 18 prisoners held at Dastgerd face charges connected to unrest and a fire in April that could carry the death penalty.

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi received US feedback on Iran’s seven-day proposal during talks with Qatari mediators in Doha on Tuesday night, Reuters reported, citing an official briefed on the talks.

The main disagreement concerns the sequencing of the plan rather than its elements, the official said. The proposal outlines a seven-day process to build trust and return to an enhanced version of a memorandum of understanding reached by Iran and the United States in June.

Araghchi presented the US proposal at Wednesday’s cabinet meeting and briefed ministers on his trip to New York, including Iran’s conditions for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, government spokesperson said.

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US President Donald Trump, meanwhile, said Iran would eventually “give up,” but suggested that point had not yet been reached.

Tanker struck in Strait of Hormuz

The diplomatic exchanges came with shipping risks persisting in the waterway at the center of the negotiations.

A tanker heading into the Strait of Hormuz was struck by an unknown projectile, the United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations said, citing a verified source. Authorities were investigating the strike.

Separately, the Revolutionary Guards described near-daily confrontations with vessels in the strait. Guards spokesman Hossein Mohebi said Iranian forces were targeting ships every 24 hours but had received no US response for some time.

The disruption has also affected neighboring Iraq. Parliament speaker Haibat al-Halbousi said Iran had given Iraqi tankers no exemption from restrictions on navigation through Hormuz.

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Iran expands military and civilian preparations

Beyond the strait, Iranian officials described efforts to strengthen the country’s military capabilities and prepare civilian infrastructure for further conflict.

Iran is rapidly expanding its missile, drone and air defense capabilities, deputy Revolutionary Guards commander Mostafa Izadi said.

“We are present in the Strait of Hormuz with strength. We are rapidly expanding our missile, drone and air defense capabilities,” Izadi said.

Iran will also hold drills covering schools, hospitals, banks, mobile phone operators, airports, ports, bridges, roads and aviation networks to prepare civilian infrastructure for wartime threats, Passive Defense Organization chief Gholamreza Jalali said.

Jalali said Iran had prepared for possible attacks on the Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan nuclear facilities before the war and conducted drills for such scenarios.

Two January protesters executed

Away from the military confrontation and negotiations, Iran carried out two more executions stemming from the January protests.

Ali Hemmati and Majid Nikandish were executed over demonstrations in Mashhad, with the judiciary accusing them of involvement in the deaths of four security personnel.

The judiciary said the two participated in protests in the city’s Tabarsi district on January 8 and accused them of attacking security personnel, setting buildings on fire and damaging public property.

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Sources previously told Iran International that Nikandish was tortured and forced to confess after his arrest and transfer to Vakilabad Prison.

Wednesday thus brought movement in indirect diplomacy with Washington without an end to confrontations in Hormuz, while Iranian authorities prepared for further conflict and continued executions stemming from January’s protests.

Sepahi, detained over protests in January and sentenced to death in Isfahan, now has his case before the sentence enforcement office, raising concerns over his execution.

“I personally saw the four places where the pellets had hit his legs,” the former prisoner told Iran International, adding that Sepahi told him his initial recovery took about two months.

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Held in a security ward at Dastgerd Prison in Isfahan, Sepahi suffered a stroke on July 28, when two other prisoners were executed, including his cousin Abolfazl Sepahi. He was hospitalized before being returned to prison.

He was sentenced to death in the Alikhani Square case, a mass prosecution of protesters accused of involvement in unrest in Isfahan in which the Islamic Republic says four security personnel were killed.

Shot during arrest

Security forces arrested Sepahi at home following the January protests, ordering his family onto the floor before going upstairs to his room.

One officer restrained him before another said, “Hold him. I want to shoot him.”

The officers shot him in both lower legs, with two more pellets striking his thighs as he was taken away. One remained lodged in his thigh bone and required surgery.

100%

After two days in hospital, he was transferred to another detention facility. His mother, brother and teenage sister were also detained.

Torture during interrogation

Sepahi spent about 26 days undergoing interrogation and torture at the facility, according to the former prisoner.

His mother was at times brought into an adjoining room so she could hear or witness the torture. Interrogators struck him in the face and hit the wounds on his legs with a hose until they began bleeding again.

“I will sign whatever you tell me to,” Sepahi shouted during the torture, based on the account.

Civil rights activist Mehdi Mahmoudian said on September 12 that Sepahi and several other defendants in the case were tortured in detention.

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Several defendants told the court they had faced torture, sexual assault and threats of rape to extract statements against one another, Mahmoudian said, adding that a significant part of the case and resulting sentences rested on those statements.

Statements challenged in court

Sepahi told the judge during his trial that security forces had shot him during his arrest, his former cellmate said.

When the judge suggested the shots might have been fired as he tried to escape, Sepahi responded: “What escape? They shot me inside my own room.”

Other defendants who had previously made statements against him also told the court that their accounts had been extracted under torture.

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Some were beaten and subjected to mock executions after returning from court and forced to write new statements against Sepahi and other defendants.

Sepahi’s mother, Somayeh, is serving a five-year sentence at Dowlatabad Prison on charges including “assembly and collusion,” “acting against national security” and “rebellion.”