New research shows that at least $105.3 million of state funds were allocated this year to the Basij Organization, Basij industries and “jihadi” groups associated with the paramilitary force.
More than a quarter of all radio and television programs produced in Iran are dedicated to Islamic and religious topics, new research shows.Out of a total of 345,000 hours of programs produced in the country in 2021, more than 70,000 hours were...
Senior Iranian officials and religious authorities – and their relatives – made dozens of trips to Europe between in the 1980s and 1990s to undergo medical treatments, according to late President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani's memoirs.The collaborative...
The registered number of thefts in Iran increased 1.7 times from 2011 to 2021, new research shows, amid an intensification of economic crises.Reports from the Statistical Center of Iran say that more than 900,000 robberies were registered in 2021,...
One of the most hard-line religious schools in Iran was allocated a total of about $29 million from the public budget over the past eight years, an amount equivalent to the expenses of nearly 5,700 Iranian urban households, new research shows.The...
Iran is an important player in the world energy market, both for its vast oil and natural gas reserves and for its significant energy consumption. But US sanctions over Iran’s nuclear program have crippled the country’s energy production and exports...
Social Crisis
February 1, 2023
This visualization looks at three aspects of the Iranian society that can be classified as social crises: (1) sexual harassment in public places; (2) domestic violence; and (3) attempted suicide. All three of these social crises reveal that the...
Iran's chief prosecutor has warned women who have rejected wearing a hijab while participating in recent nationwide anti-government demonstrations to follow the country's mandatory head scarf law "for their own safety and health."...
Iran Curbs ‘Morality Police’ Amid Protests, Uses Other Oppressive Tools
December 24, 2022
WASHINGTON — There are new indications that Iran’s Islamist rulers have constrained their morality police force that sparked nationwide protests in September, but researchers say the curtailment is not universal and merely reflects a shift in...
Press Freedom
September 15, 2022
Iran is one of the world’s ten worst countries for press freedom. The country has jailed hundreds of journalists in the past three decades, making it one of the most repressive countries for journalists. U4I's Iran Human Rights Barometer project has...
No further official information has been published in days on an apparent mass alcohol poisoning in the port city of Bandar Abbas, Hormozgan province, amid unofficial reports that the number of cases and deaths continues to climb.On Monday news that...
Trans, Gay and Married in Iran: How Two Women's Love Endured
April 27, 2022
For more than 30 years now, since its inception in California in 1990, April 25 to March 1 has been designated Lesbian Visibility Week: an international celebration and much-needed foregrounding of women who love women. Like other members of the LGBT+...
In contrast to much of the fraught wider economy, online commerce is booming in Iran. In the first 10 months of 2019 alone, some 10,000 businesses obtained "E-Namad" – a type of digital accreditation from the Ministry of Industry – followed by 28,000...
Forty percent of respondents in a recent Iran-wide survey admitted to having used prostitutes at least once.The poll, conducted by Iran Open Data, ran from February 12 to March 11, with 3,407 individuals taking part. The vast majority – 97 percent –...
Analysis by Iran Open Data shows that after a period of relative decline, the number of reported incidents has spiked again after the pandemic. The highest number of child marriages on record was still logged in 2014, with nearly 170,000 known cases,...
People in rural areas of Iran were disproportionately affected by power outages in the aftermath of major blackouts in spring and summer 2021, a new survey by Iran Open Data has found...
The Raisi administration’s 2022-23 budget bill has allocated more than 54.8 trillion tomans (US$13bn) to “maintaining public order and security”: 25 times the amount ring-fenced for environmental protection, and six times the budget for addressing the...
Record Taxpayer Cash for Khamenei's Propaganda Organs During Covid-19
December 14, 2021
Religious-propaganda organizations under the control of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei raked in unprecedented public money in the already controversial 2021/22 budget, research by Iran Open Data has found.
Half of all adults in Iran regularly drink alcohol despite it being banned by the Islamic regime, a survey by Iran Open Data has found. Moreover, the largest number said they preferred to consume homemade beverages.
Figures Show a Province-Level 'Great Divide' in Divorce Rates in Iran
September 2, 2021
One in three Iranian marriages now end in divorce, according to analysis of official figures by Iran Open Data. In 2019/20 the number of officially-registered marriages increased by 4.4 percent to 556,731, but in the same year the divorce rate also...