Iran

As rain continued to fall, a mother trudged through the mud carrying her baby son. The playful yellow onesie she had wrapped him up in brought to mind a mix between Pikachu and a cartoon duckling. Her daughter, whose hair was pulled up in a playful top knot, struggled to keep up with the harried mother.

This year, on March 8, International Women’s Day, participants of the Islamabad chapter of the Aurat March (Women’s March) faced extreme brutality and arrests by the authorities after attempting to hold their annual rally in Pakistan’s capital. Organizers from the feminist collective Hum Aurtein say police used force to disperse the gathering and arrested more than 35 women, including several well-known activists. Authorities accused the group of violating Section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, a legal provision that bans public assemblies in designated areas.

Legal experts have said the attacks violated Article 2(4) of the UN Charter, which prohibits the use of force against states. The US and...

A missile strike, an attack that opened the United States–Israel military campaign against Iran on 28 February 2026, destroyed the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ elementary school in Minab, in southern Hormozgan province of Iran. The assault occurred during the school day. Classrooms were full. More than 165 young children were killed, the majority of them girls between the ages of seven and twelve.

The politics of the Islamic Republic were not abstract when I visited Iran in 2014.They were part of the fabric of daily life. We strolled...