Tehran police will no longer arrest women for failing to observe Islamic dress code
For nearly 40 years, women in Iran have been forced to cover their hair and wear long, loose garments.
Iran
This archive collects solutions-journalism stories and milestones tied to Iran — covering health, science, civil society, and other areas where progress is documented and real. Stories here focus on what is working or improving, not just what is wrong.
Iran provides free education to thousands of illegal migrant kids
Based on figures provided by the Eduction Ministry, last school year, Iran offered free education to about 560,000 foreign students, the majority of them Afghans.
Telegram pledges to make anti-censorship tools for Iran and China
The encrypted instant messenger Telegram said on Monday it’s ramping up efforts to develop anti-censorship technologies serving users in countries where it is banned or partially blocked, including China and Iran.
Iranian government makes medical services free for all COVID-19 patients
The Iranian Health Minister said that uninsured and underprivileged patients should not pay for the healthcare services and the costs will be compensated by the national health insurance system.
Women’s rights group eliminates female genital mutilation in Kurdistan’s Garmiyan region
On International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), a women’s rights group active in the Kurdistan Region announced that zero cases of GM were reported in the Garmiyan Administration in 2019.
Iran raises minimum wage in concession to workers
Following intense tripartite negotiations, the Iranian government, employers and unions agreed to increase the country’s minimum wage by 19.8%, from 9.29 million rials ($245) per month to 11.14 million rials ($294.50).
Iran’s Green Movement rises in historic post-election protests
Iran’s Green Movement brought millions into the streets in the summer of 2009, after a disputed presidential election handed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a landslide victory that opposition supporters rejected as fraudulent. On June 15, a crowd estimated in the hundreds of thousands to three million gathered around Tehran’s Azadi Tower — the largest demonstration in the Islamic Republic’s history to that point.
Iranian women win the right to vote after 56 years of struggle
Iranian women won the right to vote in January 1963, after roughly 56 years of organizing that reached back to the Constitutional Revolution. Within two years, the first women were elected to the Majles. Generations of activists never cast a ballot themselves, but the networks they built outlasted them and reshaped the law.
ʻAbdu’l-Bahá travels to North America to preach unity of humankind
In the spring of 1912, a 67-year-old ʻAbdu’l-Bahá stepped off a ship in New York Harbor, freshly released from four decades of Ottoman imprisonment. Over 239 days, he crossed the continent preaching the oneness of humanity, dining with Black Bahá’ís in segregated cities and addressing the NAACP — an unusually public voice for equality in his era.
Safavid dynasty unifies Iran under Shi’a Islam and Persian statecraft
The Safavid dynasty rose from a Sufi order in Ardabil in 1501 C.E., becoming the first native rulers to reconstitute Iran as a unified state since the Sasanian Empire fell nearly nine centuries earlier. Shah Ismail I declared Twelver Shi’a Islam the official religion, a decision whose religious and cultural imprint still shapes the region today.