Iranian security forces and plainclothes officers broke up a Halloween gathering in central Tehran on Friday evening, beating and detaining people and forcing nearby cafes to close, witnesses told Iran International.
Prison air is “fetid” and “suffocating,” Mahvash Sabet writes in her new memoir, Open Wide the Doors, offering a rare account by a Baha’i prisoner of life inside Iran’s prisons and the persecution of the country’s religious minority.
Some Iranian families are paying thousands of dollars to put their children in foreign online schools, buying an international education from home and stepping outside the Islamic Republic’s school system, despite the education ministry’s warnings.
Young Iranians are turning from opium, their parents’ drug, to cannabis, methamphetamine and a widening range of synthetic substances, treatment specialists and officials say, as unemployment, hardship and uncertainty about the future reshape the country’s drug use.
As more Iranians build new lives abroad, many parents back home face a less visible consequence of migration: years without seeing their children, family relationships maintained through phone screens, and growing uncertainty about who will be there for them in old age.
As growing numbers of Iranian women appear in public without headscarves, authorities are pursuing organizers of cultural and sporting events over alleged violations of mandatory hijab rules.
Iran's two biggest soccer rivals met in their first women's derby on Wednesday, a historic occasion overshadowed by restrictions on male spectators and journalists and uncertainty over live television coverage.
Iran could lose up to 1.4 million jobs this year if its economy contracts by seven to eight percent, a senior Labor Ministry official said on Tuesday, estimating that around 2.5 million people are already unemployed.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's advice to stop paying taxes and stockpile fuel drew mixed reactions on Iran International's Instagram page, with commenters debating its practicality and the role of public resistance against the Islamic Republic.
Flour shortages have forced bakeries to close in several Iranian cities and pushed up bread prices, with residents and bakers reporting disrupted supplies, falling purchasing power and growing uncertainty over their businesses.
Iranians are looking to Israel's election as a potential turning point in their country's future, with supporters of Benjamin Netanyahu hoping his victory will bring renewed pressure on the Islamic Republic.
Iranians say they are paying more for slow, unreliable and heavily restricted internet after mobile operators raised data prices by up to 40%, with some reporting that their allowances run out unusually quickly.
Armed security forces and checkpoints have become more visible across Iran, according to witness reports sent to Iran International, while internet access has deteriorated amid fears of fresh unrest and another round of war.
Iran International’s New York correspondent Maryam Rahmati has won bronze in the broadcast journalism category of the 2026 United Nations Correspondents Association awards, the association announced.
Repeated economic and political crises are eroding Iranians' belief that their lives can improve, with official figures showing declining social capital, widespread perceptions of injustice and deepening distrust of the government.
Iranians seeking German work and vocational-training visas protested outside the German Embassy in Tehran on Tuesday over lengthy delays in securing appointments, with some saying they had already lost job offers or training places while waiting.
Asking for a divorce, refusing a marriage, speaking to a man she did not know: in Iran, each has preceded the killing of a woman or girl by her own family, according to a Shargh daily investigation that counted at least 38 dead in two months.
Ongoing protests and unrest in France prompted Iranian commenters to revisit the country’s role in the 1979 Islamic Revolution and criticize Western responses to crackdowns in Iran, with many calling the turmoil “karma” in response to an Iran International Instagram question.
Iran's police intelligence agency has sent threatening text messages warning citizens of possible prosecution over online activity, including people who do not use social media, according to accounts shared with Iran International.
People in Iran have described deteriorating hospital services, rising treatment costs, shortages of medical staff and equipment, and long waits for care, as healthcare workers struggle with low wages and growing workloads, according to accounts shared with Iran International.
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.