New eyewitness accounts detail chaos at Tehran girls' school

In an Instagram video story, he said that when he asked a club security guard why he was denied entry, the guard replied: “Because you are Shervin.”

Iran's clerical rulers have eased enforcement of Islamic veiling laws, paused a draconian new hijab law and looked the other way as once-banned outdoor concerts proliferate.

But crackdowns on dissidents and political speech have sharply mounted since the conflict, according to rights groups.

Hajipour is the creator of the protest song Baraye (“For…”), which became a global anthem for Iran’s nationwide Woman, Life, Freedom movement following the 2022 death of a young woman, Mahsa Amini, in morality police custody.

He was briefly arrested in September 2022 shortly after the song went viral.

In 2023, Hajipour won the inaugural Grammy Award for Best Song for Social Change for the son.

The next year, a court sentenced him to three years and eight months in prison on charges including propaganda against the Islamic Republic and inciting and encouraging people to commit acts of violence and disturbance with the intention of harming national security.

He was also banned from leaving the country for two years.

The court ordered him to produce monthly one-page works on “the crimes of America against humanity” and compose a musical piece about “America’s crimes and its violations of human rights,” according to a copy of the verdict he shared in an Instagram post.

It also directed him to summarize books by Morteza Motahhari, a leading ideologue of the Islamic Republic whose writings on women morality and politics remain central to state doctrine, and to compile cultural and scientific “achievements of the Islamic Republic” and present them in digital form.

In September 2024, his case was dismissed under a clemency order issued by Iran’s Supreme Leader, effectively granting him a pardon.

Hajipour said in his new video that despite the restrictions, he intends to continue living in Iran.

“I did not stay in this country to sit in a corner of my house or be humiliated or be unable to work or exercise,” he said.

“The imagery, captured between September and November 2025, shows a large cylindrical vessel - approximately 36 meters long and 12 meters in diameter—housed inside a new domed building,” the report said on Tuesday.

"What exactly the object is cannot be completely determined from the satellite imagery alone, however, its shape and metal structure are consistent with previous high-explosive test chambers Iran has built," the report added. "The facility is likely entering an advanced stage of construction."

Taleghan 2 is located near Taleghan 1; both are part of the Parchin military complex, about 20 miles southeast of Tehran.

“Reconstruction began as early as May 2025 and has progressed quickly despite the prior damage,” the report said.

The institute said both Taleghan sites were part of Iran’s AMAD Plan, an alleged covert project aimed at developing nuclear weapons.

The AMAD Plan ran from the late 1990s until 2003, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Iran denies the existence of the AMAD Plan, insisting its nuclear program is purely peaceful and that nuclear weapons are forbidden by a religious decree from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

The institute which monitors sites activity satellite imagery, reported last month on Iran’s renewed activity in Taleghan 2 site.

“By June 12, groundwork and foundations had been laid, and by late August, a new arch-roofed structure about 45 by 17 meters was under construction over the temporary cover, with two smaller buildings nearby,” the institute added.

The UN nuclear watchdog said on Wednesday it needs more Iranian cooperation to restore full inspections at sites hit in June’s strikes, warning that verification of enriched uranium stocks is “long overdue.”

Tehran Province’s education chief Yousef Baharloo said tensions at the school erupted on Wednesday after staff confiscated several students’ phones, adding that he had received no reports of physical injury to the students.

But eyewitnesses drew a different picture.

“They grabbed us by the collars in groups when we entered the school and dragged us inside. They forced us to kneel and threw our belongings on the ground. They touched our private parts and checked our bodies completely,” one student said.

“On the pretext of taking mobile phones and picking on us for our hijabs, they went after the students. They even sent the Special Unit and closed the school gate,” another eye witness said, referring to security forces.

Videos and images shared with Iran International appeared to show emergency personnel and ambulances at the school following the altercation.

The incident, which occurred on Tuesday, raised fresh concerns about student safety and oversight by Iran’s Education Ministry.

Families gathered outside the school on Wednesday in protest, but the principal was not present. Security forces were later deployed around the site.

"The school principal even criticized the students' hairstyles and appearance, and during inspections, he treated them with very vulgar language and violent behavior,” a third eyewitness said, describing the original altercation.

"The principal would beat the students and throw their phones at them," the eyewitness added. "He even smashed the camera of one of the students, whose major was photography, against the wall."

The case follows earlier incidents this year, including the suicide of a 12-year-old student in Shiraz in October and the death of a 14-year-old in Zanjan in August after punishment at school, which have intensified concern about violence and a lack of accountability in Iran’s education system.

In his address to a US-Saudi business forum in Washington DC with visiting Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in attendance, Trump said US strikes on Iranian nuclear sites in June had protected Riyadh.

"We took the Dark Cloud away from your country, it was called Iran and its nuclear capability, and we obliterated that very quickly and strongly and powerfully.
But that was a real cloud over the whole Middle East," he said.

"Now they want to make a deal. They want to make a deal. They want to see if they can work out a deal with us, and we'll be doing that probably. But that was a terrible cloud that you had to live with for a long time."

At a joint appearance in the White House on Tuesday, Trump said the United States was talking to Tehran, which he said "very badly” wanted a deal with Washington.

Tehran flatly denied any such talks were underway earlier on Wednesday.

“There is no process of negotiation between Iran and the United States,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei told reporters in Tehran.

“Talking to a side that does not believe in mutual respect and takes pride in military aggression against Iran has no logical justification.”

Iran has denied seeking a nuclear weapon and has rejected US demands that it end domestic enrichment, rein in its missile program and cut off help for its armed Mideast allies.

The impasse over the disputed program festers despite Trump's assertion that the US attacks had "obliterated" it.

“Eighty percent of the Iranian people are not political in a certain sense, and it does not matter much to them who governs or how; they only want to live and to have security and a clearer outlook for the future,” Khatami said.

He said the country has never experienced a situation as severe as the one it faces now, with challenges and threats unlike anything seen since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Khatami compared Iran’s governing system to “a sturdy tree” that had long endured hardship but now faced mounting dangers.

“This sturdy tree may be able to withstand drought and storms for many years, but today the internal and external threats and problems are so vast and significant that there is a fear this sturdy tree may suddenly wither and collapse, may that day never come,” he said.

Economic hardship

The former reformist president's remarks come as the government struggles to contain soaring prices and widening poverty.

According to Iran's Parliament’s Research Center, over a third of Iranians live in poverty.

Rising inflation and a weakening currency have helped drive up costs of living in Iran and economic pain has deepened as Western and European-triggered international sanctions compound the country's international isolation.

Earlier this month, a senior economist at Iran's Ahvaz University, Morteza Afghah, warned that annual inflation could exceed 60% by the end of the Iranian calendar year (March 2026).

Surveys say otherwise

Last week, a survey by Tehran-based news site Rouydad24 found that 92% of Iranians are unhappy with the country’s direction.

“What is clear is that total public satisfaction with all governments since the revolution is now overshadowed by a 92 percent dissatisfaction with the country’s current situation,” Rouydad24 said.

According to the outlet, the level of satisfaction with Khatami's successor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s administration was highest overall, while those of Hassan Rouhani and Masoud Pezeshkian ranked lowest.

Another survey conducted by a Netherlands-based polling institute last year found that the majority of Iranians would vote for either a regime change or a structural transition away from the Islamic Republic.

The Group for Analyzing and Measuring Attitudes in Iran (GAMAAN), which conducted the survey in June 2024, said it polled more than 77,000 respondents inside Iran, weighting the results to represent the literate adult population.

“A majority of the population opposes the Islamic Republic and supports changing or transforming the political system,” the report’s author Ammar Maleki said.

Only around 20 percent of respondents want the Islamic Republic to remain in power, according to the survey.

The survey found no single consensus on what system should replace the current order. A secular republic was backed by 26 percent of respondents, while 21 percent supported a monarchy.

Another 22 percent said they lacked enough information to decide, and 11 percent said that the form of an alternative system was not important so long as change occurred.