Firsthand reports from contributors inside Iran
On the eve of a UN vote to restore sanctions on Iran, an independent art book fair in the courtyard of an old house in Tehran provided a rare haven from serial political horrors.
Nearly a hundred self-publishing artists came from across the country, with a few from abroad, filling the yard with books, zines, postcards, sketches and personal projects.
In Iran, every published book must pass through the censors of the Ministry of Culture.
For years, authorities swiftly seized unlicensed works. Yet in recent months, the state often pretends not to see. Unpermitted concerts are staged, books are printed and sold unlicensed, exhibitions openly defy religious and political red lines, independent theaters perform and participants dress freely.
Only when photos or videos go viral and outrage hardliners does the government intervene, eager to placate the constituency it deems vital for survival.
New normal?
That evening, the turnout itself was striking. The organizers had deliberately avoided publicity, fearing a shutdown, but word spread and the courtyard filled with hundreds of people.
Stalls offered original stories, photo collections, paintings, handmade magazines, and designs unseen elsewhere.
Even the clothing became a statement. Women wore sleeveless dresses and shorts. Some men, too, chose shorts—now more likely to be banned than unveiled women.
I spoke with a young woman who had turned her mother’s life into a photo-book, a couple selling posters on Palestine and Gaza, and a Berlin project created by queer refugees and migrants— extraordinary in a country where queer life faces relentless suppression.
The fair lasted three days, with workshops and discussions, all unlicensed and therefore illegal.
It belonged to the wave of activity born of the Woman, Life, Freedom movement, shaped by the conviction that freedom must be lived, not pleaded for or postponed.
Live not fight
One organizer recalled the police once stopping by, noticing women in sleeveless tops, and saying: “We don’t care about these things. We see worse uptown. Just don’t block driveways.”
The art they ignored entirely.
No one believes this space is permanent. The same authorities who tolerate unveiled women in cafés one week seal those cafés the next. Crackdowns and reopenings follow in cycles.
Yet people do not retreat. They build communities, collaborate and bring into being what they once thought dependent on systemic change.
Politics may dictate sanctions in New York, but in Tehran courtyards people go on writing, printing, painting and performing—in disregard more than defiance—living the freedom they’re no longer willing to wait for.
Iran, along with the likes of Brazil and South Korea, has long prized surgically enhanced beauty standards especially in the form of rhinoplasty. But demand has now expanded to liposuction, tummy tucks and breast and buttock augmentations.
Women make up nearly 80 percent of patients, with operations estimated to number several hundred thousand each year.
One aspiring patient, Neda, 29, from Tehran, confessed to seeking to reshape her body under the influence of her partner. “My boyfriend keeps liking bloggers with huge butts and breasts, and I want to be what he likes,” she wrote.
“I’m terrified he will lose interest if I don’t change.”
Another, Sara, 31, also from Tehran, discussed the financial burden. “I’m paying in monthly installments. That’s the only way I can do this. I just want my body to look right in clothes.”
Interviewees spoke to Iran International on condition that their names not be revealed.
A theocracy for 46 years which has enforced Islamic veiling and loose clothing on women, the country has inched toward more laxity as a stringent new hijab and chastity law was paused this year out of concern it would stoke unrest.
'Can't look away'
Ladan, 27, described proudly how cosmetic operations reshaped her social life as much as her body. “With a Brazilian butt and big breasts, all eyes are on me at weekend gatherings,” she said. “Even married men can’t look away.”
Her story reflects how surgery is often pursued not in private but for public recognition.
This view is challenged by many women who point to the subtle but constant pressures of patriarchy behind these choices.
"A question I often hear here is women asking men, 'are you a boobs or butt guy?'” UK-based Iranian feminist Samaneh Savadi wrote on X. “Each time I’m surprised and wonder to myself whether these women are secretly hoping the answer will be, ‘Neither, personality matters more to me’.
"As American author Naomi Wolf has argued, a culture fixated on female thinness is not an obsession about female beauty, but an obsession about female obedience.”
Image obsession
Instagram plays a central role in all of this.
Beauty bloggers and influencers, their photos sculpted by filters as much as surgery, set new expectations for how a body should look. For many, the pressure is relentless.
“It’s not just about beauty—it’s about staying relevant,” Sara explained. “You see the perfect pictures and wonder if anyone will notice you if you don’t look like that.”
Not all accounts are triumphant. Farnaz, 36, a mother of two, described the sacrifices behind her decision.
“After childbirth my breasts sagged and my stomach was loose. I feared my husband would lose interest. I sold my jewelry to pay for implants, lipo, and a butt lift. Now he is pleased, and my sex life mattered more than gold.”
Such experiences show how beauty operations are framed not only as self-improvement but as survival—of marriages, relationships or social standing.
While women make up the majority of patients, there is a surge in male clients seeking procedures once considered taboo.
Popular operations include hair transplants, liposuction, jawline contouring and even pectoral and ab sculpting.
Clinics advertise these services in the same breath as breast lifts or nose jobs, underscoring how beauty standards are increasingly marketed to men as well.
Beauty prices
Price lists explain the demand. Breast augmentations range from $850 to $1,700. Liposuction for one area costs $300–600, with full-body packages starting at $1,800. Brazilian butt lifts run between $500 and $1,500.
The contrast with global prices is stark. In the United States or the United Kingdom, such procedures often exceed $10,000. Iran’s bargain rates draw foreign clients, while locals depend on financing.
Clinics advertise repayment plans that spread costs across years, normalizing surgery as a consumer purchase.
'No magic'
But beneath the glossy ads lie dangers.
Qualified surgeons warn of unlicensed operators who flourish on social media, promising impossible results with manipulated images in “before and after” galleries.
With no central registry, complications are hidden, and patients often rely only on word of mouth.
“People believe surgery is magic,” a Tehran-based surgeon who spoke on condition of anonymity told Iran International. “But bodies are different, and there are limits. Some patients don’t want to hear that part.”
From boyfriends comparing them to bloggers to mothers pawning jewelry to preserve marriages, stories in clinics and forums highlight the personal sacrifices behind Iran’s cosmetic surgery boom.
In today’s Iran, beauty is pursued through loans and credit which buy beauty and lasting financial strain in equal measure.
Kalateh, a master’s student in metallurgy and materials engineering, died instantly in Thursday’s explosion, while two other students were injured and remain under treatment. A professor suffered minor injuries. The blast shattered windows and walls of the two-storey building, according to the fire department.
One committee will examine the cause of the incident and the second will review hazardous equipment across university laboratories. Omid said all labs with potentially dangerous devices had been temporarily suspended pending inspection. “Our labs are subject to regular technical inspections. The reason for this bitter incident must be clarified and reported,” he said.
Kalateh’s body was laid to rest Saturday in the Namavaran section of Behesht-e Zahra cemetery in Tehran after a funeral attended by students and officials. Science Minister Hossein Simayi called his death “an irreparable loss” in a message of condolence, and university leaders later visited the family’s home. Omid described Kalateh as a gifted and hardworking student preparing to defend his thesis.
The blast was not the first serious incident in an Iranian university laboratory. In 2023, a fire at Sharif University’s civil engineering faculty caused up to $10 million in damage, and in 2022 an accident at Tehran University’s Abureihan campus left a student and a lab technician with burns. Students at the time cited poor safety standards, while officials blamed human error.
Authorities confirmed this week that the MamlouDam, one of five major reservoirs supplying the capital, has fallen below usable levels.
Only 8% of its 250 million cubic meter capacity remains, with storage at 19 million cubic meters -- below the “dead volume” threshold of 28 million.
The facility, built in 2007 east of Tehran, is officially out of operation for the first time, leaving the capital more reliant on other reservoirs already at historic lows.
The crisis extends far beyond Tehran. In northwestern Iran, Lake Urmia, once the Middle East’s largest saltwater lake, has lost more than 90% of its volume and surface area.
Environmental experts warned on Wednesday that “salt storms” from the dried lakebed are beginning to hit surrounding provinces, damaging crops, raising health risks, and prompting what officials describe as the early stages of forced relocations from nearby towns and villages.
Lawmakers acknowledge that years of mismanaged agriculture, unchecked groundwater pumping and weak enforcement of water-use reforms have accelerated the decline.
“The lake is like a critical patient in intensive care,” said Reza Hajikarim, head of Iran’s Water Industry Federation, warning that existing plans were not implemented to save the lake. He urged rapid cuts in water-intensive farming and enforcement of ecological water rights, saying “we do not need new solutions, only execution of the old ones.”
“Salt storms from Lake Urmia have now begun, and evacuations are starting in provinces surrounding the lake. The salt storms and rising temperatures caused by the sun’s reflection are among the consequences of Urmia’s desiccation, undermining life and habitability in the region. This is only the beginning,” he added.
Social strains are mounting. In recent weeks, a violent clash over irrigation rights near Urmia left one dead and 13 injured, highlighting how scarcity is fueling local disputes.
Similar unrest erupted earlier this year in central Iran, where farmers damaged a pipeline transferring water from Isfahan to Yazd. Rights groups say protests over blackouts and dry taps in cities such as Sabzevar were also met with arrests and tear gas.
Experts stress the problems are largely man-made. Climatologist Nasser Karami has described the situation as an “engineered drought,” arguing that mismanagement, subsidies for water-intensive crops, and expansion of militarized agriculture -- not climate alone -- lie at the root.
Agriculture consumes over 85% of Iran’s water while contributing less than 12% of GDP, and exports such as pistachios and melons remain state priorities despite groundwater depletion.
Other ecosystems are also under threat. Officials warn that Anzali Wetland on the Caspian coast faces collapse without $300 million in restoration funds, after decades of sewage, sediment and pollution inflows.
Iran’s Meteorological Organization says the country has endured two decades of near-continuous drought, but specialists argue that structural reforms -- diverting water from agriculture to households, modernizing irrigation, reducing waste, and enforcing groundwater limits -- could stabilize supplies.