The Free Trade Union of Workers in Iran has reported that a member of its board of directors, Ms. Nahid Khodajo, was summoned to Tehran's Evin Prison, to serve her sentence amid the coronavirus crisis.
On the rooftop terrace of her Tehran apartment building, 28-year-old Mojgan Hosseini’s fingers pluck the strings of her qanun, an ancient stringed instrument, bringing life to an Iranian capital stilled by the coronavirus.
On March 22, as the coronavirus pandemic continued to ravage Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei suggested that the United States bore responsibility for his nation’s plight. In a speech rejecting US offers of medical aid, Khamenei declared—echoing a claim first promulgated by Chinese officials—that America may have created the virus in a deliberate effort to target Iranians.
In response to Iran’s coronavirus outbreak in late February, one of the government’s first actions was to close schools and universities on March 5, leaving the education of millions of students in limbo. The prolonged shutdown has led to major challenges for students, parents and teachers.
The Baha’i International Community is deeply concerned for the well-being of Baha’is that remain in prison in Iran.
UN human rights experts* today called on Iran to expand its temporary release of thousands of detainees to include prisoners of conscience and dual and foreign nationals still being held despite serious risk of COVID-19 infection. The country has been hit hard by COVID-19, with Health Ministry officials reporting one person dies every 10 minutes from the virus.
Around 36 prisoners in Iran are feared to have been killed by security forces after the use of lethal force to control protests over COVID-19 safety fears, Amnesty International has learned.
Iran has been struck by one of the most severe coronavirus outbreaks in the world, but the voices of Iranians affected by the pandemic have remained largely unheard outside the country’s borders. The scale of their suffering has been obscured by often upbeat stories about survivors in Iran’s official media and by an inscrutable government many suspect is underplaying the toll.
Iranian officials have taken to firing aggressive and sometimes disparaging remarks deriding the Western—especially American—response to the coronavirus outbreak in an apparent attempt to counter criticism of their own shortcomings.
