A court in the Iranian city of Qom has sentenced a woman to 50 lashes for kissing and hugging a man in a cafe, after her husband filed a complaint and submitted video of the meeting, according to the rights group HRANA. She denies the charge.
Nearly five decades after the 1979 Revolution brought an end to Iran's legal wine industry, the country retains vast vineyards and a centuries-old winemaking heritage but remains absent from a global wine export market worth $37.8 billion in 2025.
Iranians receiving unemployment benefits say payments have been delayed by up to two months, leaving some struggling to pay for food and service debts, according to messages sent to Iran International.
Oscar-winning Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi says his next film will be in Persian and set in Tehran but shot abroad to avoid Iran's mandatory hijab rules and government permit requirements.
Iranian judicial authorities have detained a football coach in the western city of Divandarreh after five people filed complaints alleging sexual abuse connected to a youth football club.
More than two-thirds of respondents to an Iran International Instagram poll said the Trump administration’s pressure on the Islamic Republic is hurting ordinary Iranians more than the authorities.
Reports that the Islamic Republic sent $200 million to Lebanon's Hezbollah have drawn anger from Iranians struggling with rising living costs, low wages and medicine shortages, according to messages sent to Iran International.
Two surveys emerging from within or around Iran's political establishment paint a bleak picture of public confidence: deep skepticism toward state institutions, single-digit trust in political officials and overwhelming demand for change.
A theater production in Tehran displayed a notice to spectators before a performance saying two actors who embrace on stage are married, underscoring the restrictions governing physical contact between men and women under the Islamic Republic.
Police in Tehran have warned cafes that they could face closure or lose their licenses for hosting live music, using DJs or serving hookah, extending a broader campaign of enforcement against businesses over entertainment, mandatory hijab rules and support for protests.
Workers across several sectors in Iran say employers are delaying or splitting wage payments, cutting benefits and warning staff they could lose their jobs for protesting, as inflation and rising living costs deepen pressure on households.
Iranian women have delivered a record-breaking performance at the 2026 Asian Games, winning medals across an unusually broad range of sports and achieving a series of firsts for the country.
Iranians are selling livestock, cars and furniture to pay for treatment their insurance no longer covers, and a member of parliament's health committee says the system has reached the point where falling ill can end in death rather than care.
Senior Iranian military and security officials have been photographed wearing smartwatches, drawing fresh criticism of their basic security discipline after years of reports that Israel has used electronic devices around Iranian commanders to track and kill them.
Iran’s Education Ministry dismissed reports of teacher resignations over working conditions and security pressure as a “rumor,” despite numerous videos of teachers announcing departures and a teachers’ council warning of a growing exodus.
Business at one of central Iran’s main heavy-vehicle service hubs has fallen by about 30% from a year earlier, offering a ground-level view of an economy where soaring food prices, a battered currency and weaker freight activity are squeezing workers and small businesses.
The spread of Starlink could deliver the “final nail in the coffin” of Iran’s ability to control cyberspace, Deputy Communications Minister Mohammad Hafez Hakami said Wednesday, even as authorities seek to suppress the technology through arrests, seizures and criminal penalties.
Years in prison or hiding, suicide attempts and severe financial hardship are among the consequences of Iran’s imprisonment of people over unpaid financial obligations, according to an IHRDC report published Tuesday.
After the Islamic Republic turned its guns on protesters during Iran’s nationwide January uprising, filling streets, hospitals and morgues with the wounded and the dead, it may have silenced the streets, but protest and dissent have found a new battleground: the body.
Tehran prosecutors have opened a criminal case against a theater company after a spectator's phone video showed an actress resting her head against an actor's chest on stage, in a scene the production says depicts a brother and sister.
Mothers without headscarves walked daughters in regulation hoods to school in Iran this week. Women who remember 1980 describe the same scene from the year the state began imposing hijab. The picture is identical. What has changed is the society around it.
Masoud Pezeshkian told the UN that Iran would not accept the language of force. Iranians writing to Iran International had one reply: that is the only language his government uses at home. Their messages picked apart what he said, what he left out, and how he said it.