Iranian court sentences man to write out religious book for wearing shorts

The explosion caused minor damage estimated at 150 million Iranian rials or about $138 to a metal door and the building's stone facade. No injuries were reported, and public services were not disrupted.

Fallah, currently held in Lakan Prison in the town of Rasht in Gilan province where the incident occurred, was sentenced to death in February by an Islamic revolutionary court. Earlier this week, Iran's Supreme Court rejected his lawyer's appeal.

His lawyer, Milad Panahipour, has condemned the ruling as a "clear violation of proportional justice," arguing that the punishment far exceeds the severity of the alleged offense.

"The court relied on an article in the penal code which penalizes damage to vital public infrastructure. The judiciary building was not classified as a vital facility, and the explosion occurred at midnight when no one was present. This was a small sound firecracker, not a weapon of war," Panahipour said.

'War against God' charge

Fallah was arrested at Rasht Airport in July 2023 and initially sentenced to 15 months in prison of insulting Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and propaganda against the Islamic Republic.

Despite completing that sentence, authorities filed a new case against him with charges of "moharebeh" or war against God, a charge that carries the death penalty.

Reza Akvanian, a human rights activist based in Brussels, criticized the legal basis of the ruling, saying that even under the Islamic Republic's own laws, the charge of moharebeh is unjustified.

"The law clearly defines a mohareb as someone who takes up arms, which Fallah did not do," Akvanian said. "The court's claim that this act qualifies as moharebeh is unprecedented even within Iran's judicial system."

He said that Fallah has denied all charges against him, asserting his innocence.

"These days, they’re once again looking for necks to fit their nooses," US-based activist Masih Alinejad wrote on her Instagram, referring to Fallah's case.

"There’s no proportion between the act and the punishment, but these people see killing a prisoner as a show of power," Alinejad said.

Forced confessions

Throughout the legal proceedings, Fallah was denied access to a lawyer and subjected to coercive interrogation tactics, including threats against family members.

Sources familiar with the cased told Iran International that Fallah had no access to legal counsel during his 18 months in detention. His death sentence was delivered via video conference, raising further concerns about the fairness of the judicial process.

Religious scholars in Qom, the sources added, have been urged to intervene and help overturn the sentence.

While Fallah's case has not yet been highlighted by major international human rights organizations, it reflects broader patterns documented in Iran's judicial system.

According to Iran Human Rights and other advocacy groups, more than 70 political prisoners currently face confirmed or pending death sentences, while over 100 others are at risk of receiving similar verdicts.

The Iran Human Rights Society called October “the bloodiest month for prisoners since the mass executions of 1988.” The deaths, it said, mostly linked to drug offenses or murder, included several Afghan nationals and were sometimes carried out without notifying families or allowing final visits.

Amnesty International on October 16 also urged an immediate halt to executions, saying more than 1,000 had been recorded so far in 2025, many following unfair trials aimed at silencing dissent and persecuting minorities.

Friday prayer leaders are state appointees in Iran's theocracy, and their political speeches reflect the official stance of the ruling clerical establishment.

Ahmad Khatami, the Friday prayer leader in Tehran, said Iran would never yield to what he called US coercion. “Trump says he wants to deal with Iran, but a deal made with force is surrender,” Khatami said during his sermon, according to state media.

He said Iran would “break the horn of this wild bull” through faith and endurance, using the phrase to describe what he called Washington’s policy of pressure.

Referring to the US withdrawal from a 2015 nuclear deal, he said Washington “tore up the agreement in front of the world” and “cannot be trusted for any negotiation.”

In Qom, Mohammad Saeedi praised Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s recent response to Trump’s remarks about Iran’s nuclear program, saying it “crushed the arrogance of the US president.” Saeedi said the reply showed that Iran would not let “foreigners decide its needs,” according to Mehr news agency.

Khamenei, speaking in Tehran on Monday, had dismissed Trump’s assertion that US air strikes destroyed Iran’s nuclear program.

“The US president proudly says they bombed and destroyed Iran’s nuclear industry. Very well, keep dreaming,” he said. Khamenei added that Washington had no authority over Iran’s nuclear work and accused the United States of backing Israel’s war in Gaza.

“Trump tries to look powerful, but his words only reveal weakness,” Saeedi said. “The world saw that our leader’s wisdom silenced his noise.”

In Ahvaz, Mohammadnabi Mousavi-Fard said the Persian Gulf would turn into “a hell for global arrogance” if the US or its allies threatened Iran. He said Iran’s strength came from its faith and self-reliance.

“Every dollar of non-oil exports builds our national power,” he said, urging officials to focus on production and technology to counter sanctions.

The clerics’ remarks followed comments by national security chief Ali Larijani, who on Thursday likened Trump to Adolf Hitler and mocked his behavior at a US-led Gaza ceasefire summit in Egypt.

Larijani said Trump “spoke only by himself,” showed “disrespect to other leaders,” and turned the event into a “Trump show.”

Water inflow to dams stood at about 780 million cubic meters as of Oct. 18, a 39% decline from the 1.29 billion cubic meters recorded a year earlier, according to data reported by ILNA news agency. Despite a 29% cut in water discharge to conserve supplies, total storage in the country’s reservoirs fell to 17.7 billion cubic meters from 23.3 billion, leaving national reserves around one-third full.

Twenty-two major dams are in critical condition, holding less than 15% of their designed capacity, wrote ILNA. In Tehran province, the five dams supplying the capital’s drinking and agricultural water are among the hardest hit. Amir Kabir Dam is at 11% capacity, an 80% drop from last year, while Lar Dam has fallen to just 2%, and Latyan, Mamlu and Taleghan dams each recorded declines of more than a third.

Reservoirs in other key provinces, Khuzestan in the southwest, Fars and Kerman in the south, and East and West Azarbaijan in the northwest, have registered deficits ranging from 20% to 70%, while some dams in Golestan province in the north, including Voshmgir and Bustan, have run completely dry, the report said.

Average rainfall since late September has been just 1.9 millimeters, far below the long-term average of 56 millimeters, and no measurable rain has been recorded in 21 provinces, including Tehran, Isfahan, Khuzestan, Kerman, and Kurdistan. Officials have warned of growing risks to both drinking water and crop irrigation in the coming months.

Drought altering rural life in Isfahan

In the central province of Isfahan, the water crisis has gone beyond agriculture to reshape entire communities. “Water scarcity has had deep effects on land subsidence, migration, and the changing character of rural areas,” said Gholamreza Goudarzi, head of Iran’s Statistical Center, in remarks published on Friday.

Census data collected during last year’s agricultural survey, he said, show that prolonged drought has altered crop diversity and forced some residents to abandon villages.

Experts warn that without immediate conservation measures, technological upgrades in irrigation, and coordinated drought management, Iran faces escalating water shortages that could endanger both rural livelihoods and urban supply in the months ahead.

The Financial Trend Analysis (FTA) released by the Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) outlines how Iran used foreign companies and exchange houses to skirt sanctions and fund overseas operations, including oil sales and weapons procurement.

“Identifying Iran’s complex financial lifelines and shadow networks is an essential part of cutting off the funding for their military, weapons programs, and terrorist proxies,” FinCEN Director Andrea Gacki said. “By issuing this public analysis, we hope to draw attention to Iran’s shadow banking activity and encourage financial institutions to be vigilant,” she said.

The FTA forms part of US president Donald Trump’s maximum pressure campaign announced in February, aimed at denying Iran nuclear weapons and missile capabilities and curbing its regional influence.

FinCEN’s report is based on financial institution filings covering transactions made before the campaign’s launch, supplementing a June advisory on Iranian oil smuggling and procurement efforts. It highlights that shell companies outside the United States appear to play the largest role in the shadow banking network, accounting for roughly $5 billion of activity in 2024.

The report also found that Iran-linked oil companies, primarily based in the United Arab Emirates and Singapore, moved about $4 billion that year—likely tied to concealed oil sales. Meanwhile, entities suspected of technology procurement handled approximately $413 million in transactions linked to Iranian networks.

According to FinCEN, the network spans the UAE, Hong Kong, and Singapore, with Iranian front companies in sectors from shipping to investment. The findings stress how Tehran’s financial system relies on layers of intermediaries to maintain access to global markets despite sanctions.

The new analysis, the Treasury said, would assist US and foreign banks in tracing suspicious transfers and reinforcing compliance efforts.

“We're all in the same boat shaped by the sacrifices of the martyrs of the Islamic Revolution, and it would be a shame if our differences created weaknesses", he said in an interview with state media

It sounded, at first, like an appeal for unity. But in the opaque language of the Islamic Republic, moral parables are rarely innocent.

Beneath the call for calm was a political warning: a message to rival factions inside the regime to stop leaking, stop exposing, stop fighting, before their infighting sinks the whole ship.

When Shamkhani urged everyone not to “puncture the boat,” he invited an obvious question: whose boat? Was he speaking of the Iranian nation or of the VIP mariners like himself who have captained it for nearly five decades?

In one reading, the “boat” is the state itself, a vessel battered by sanctions, protests and crises. From that vantage point, Shamkhani’s warning was a familiar one: security men urging unity to preserve the ship of state.

But there’s another interpretation, and it’s the one most Iranians heard. This wasn’t a plea for national survival.

It was a coded SOS from the elite, a reminder to fellow insiders that the leaks threatening to sink them were coming from within their own cabin. Their “boat” isn’t the Islamic Republic; it's the luxury vessel of privilege, patronage and power that keeps them afloat while the rest of the country treads water.

History has shown that when Iran’s political ship hits rough waters, it’s not the captains who drown, it’s the crew.

Economic collapse, inflation, repression, all of it falls hardest on those already half-submerged: workers, teachers, pensioners and the youth. Meanwhile, those steering the ship have lifeboats waiting: foreign bank accounts, Dominica passports, villas on Private Islands or even in London.

So when Shamkhani warns that “we’ll all sink together,” he isn’t speaking to the street vendors or nurses who can’t afford rent. He’s speaking to his peers, the sanctioned oligarchs and security bosses who know that too much sunlight might burn their privilege.

The crumbling myth of piety

The scandal’s power lies not in the wedding itself, but in what it reveals: the erosion of the ruling system's last claim to legitimacy and moral authority.

For decades, the Islamic Republic justified its rule through an ethic of sacrifice and piety. The message was simple: we may be strict, but we are righteous. Now, its ruling class lives like exiled royalty and curses its critics.

Every leaked image of over-indulgence, every glimpse behind the velvet curtain, peels away another layer of the revolution’s moral armor.

Corruption is not a crack in the hull; it is the hull. And the public knows it. Outrage has given way to a colder recognition: the ship has been taking on water for years.

The Iranian people no longer expect reform from within. They have learned that the system cannot self-correct because it was never built to share accountability, only to protect those who built it.

And so, Shamkhani’s metaphor holds, but not in the way he intended.

Iran is a boat, yes. But it’s one where a few dine under chandeliers while others take on water in the dark. The waves are rising. And this time, the passengers in steerage are no longer willing to go down quietly.