A domestically-built missile and banners displaying portraits of the Iranian Supreme Chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, heart, and armed forces commanders who have been killed in an Israeli strike in June, are displayed in Baharestan Sq., Tehran, Thursday, Sept. 25, 2025.
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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The United Nations reimposed sanctions on Iran early Sunday over its nuclear program, additional squeezing the Islamic Republic as its folks more and more discover themselves priced out of the meals they should survive and frightened about their futures.
The sanctions will once more freeze Iranian property overseas, halt arms offers with Tehran, and penalize any growth of Iran’s ballistic missile program, amongst different measures. It got here by way of a mechanism often known as “snapback,” included in Iran’s 2015 nuclear cope with world powers, and comes as Iran’s economic system already is reeling.
Iran’s rial foreign money sits at a report low, rising strain on meals costs and making each day life that rather more difficult. That features meat, rice and different staples of the Iranian dinner desk.
In the meantime, folks fear a couple of new spherical of combating between Iran and Israel — in addition to probably the US — as missile websites struck in the course of the 12-day struggle in June now seem like being rebuilt.
Activists worry a rising wave of repression throughout the Islamic Republic, which already has reportedly executed extra folks this 12 months than over the previous three a long time.
A lady sits within the al fresco eating space of a restaurant on the Enqelab-e-Eslami (Islamic Revolution) avenue, in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, Sept. 27, 2025.
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Sina, the daddy of a 12-year-old boy who spoke given that solely his first identify be used for worry of repercussions, mentioned the nation has by no means confronted such a difficult time, even in the course of the deprivations of the Nineteen Eighties Iran-Iraq struggle and the a long time of sanctions that got here later.
“For so long as I can bear in mind, we have been battling financial hardship, and yearly it is worse than the final,” Sina advised The Related Press. “For my era, it is at all times both too late or too early — our goals are slipping away.”
Iran sanctions set to ‘snapback’
Snapback was designed to be veto-proof on the U.N. Safety Council, which means China and Russia couldn’t cease it alone, as they produce other proposed actions in opposition to Tehran previously. Russian International Minister Sergey Lavrov referred to as them a “entice” for Iran on Saturday.
France, Germany and the UK triggered snapback over Iran 30 days in the past for its additional limiting monitoring of its nuclear program and the impasse over its negotiations with the U.S.
Iran additional withdrew from the Worldwide Atomic Vitality Company monitoring after Israel’s struggle with the nation in June, which additionally noticed the U.S. strike nuclear websites within the Islamic Republic. In the meantime, the nation nonetheless maintains a stockpile of uranium enriched as much as 60% purity — a brief, technical step away from weapons-grade ranges of 90% — that’s largely sufficient to make a number of atomic bombs, ought to Tehran select to hurry towards weaponization.
Iran has lengthy insisted its nuclear program is peaceable, although the West and IAEA say Tehran had an organized weapons program up till 2003.
The three European nations on Sunday mentioned they “constantly made each effort to keep away from triggering snapback.” However Iran “has not approved IAEA inspectors to regain entry to Iran’s nuclear websites, nor has it produced and transmitted to the IAEA a report accounting for its stockpile of high-enriched uranium.”
Tehran has additional argued that the three European nations should not be allowed to implement snapback, pointing partially to America’s unilateral withdrawal from the accord in 2018, in the course of the first time period of President Donald Trump’s administration.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio praised the three European nations for “an act of decisive international management” for imposing the sanctions on Iran and mentioned “diplomacy remains to be an possibility.”
“For that to occur, Iran should settle for direct talks,” Rubio mentioned.
Nevertheless, it stays unclear how Tehran will reply Sunday.
“The Trump administration seems to assume it has a stronger hand post-strikes, and it could possibly anticipate Iran to return again to the desk,” mentioned Kelsey Davenport, a nuclear professional on the Washington-based Arms Management Affiliation. “Given the information Iran has, given the supplies that stay in Iran, that is a really harmful assumption.”
Dangers additionally stay for Iran as nicely, she added: “Within the quick time period, kicking out the IAEA will increase the chance of miscalculation. The U.S. or Israel might use the dearth of inspections as a pretext for additional strikes.”
Starvation and nervousness develop in Iran
The aftermath of the June struggle drove up meals costs in Iran, placing already costly meat out of attain for poorer households.
Two girls stroll previous an enormous banner displaying the commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard expeditionary Quds Power, Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a U.S. drone assault in 2020, and two Hezbollah leaders who have been killed in Israeli airstrikes in 2024, on the Enqelab-e-Eslami (Islamic Revolution) sq., in Tehran, Iran, Saturday, Sept. 27, 2025.
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Iran’s authorities put general annual inflation at 34.5% in June, and its Statistical Heart reported that the price of important meals gadgets rose over 50% over the identical interval. However even that does not mirror what folks see at retailers. Pinto beans tripled in worth in a 12 months, whereas butter almost doubled. Rice, a staple, rose greater than 80% on common, hitting 100% for premium varieties. Entire hen is up 26%, whereas beer and lamb are up 9%.
“Day by day I see new increased costs for cheese, milk and butter,” mentioned Sima Taghavi, a mom of two, at a Tehran grocery. “I can not omit them like fruits and meat from my grocery checklist as a result of my children are too younger to be disadvantaged.”
The strain over meals and fears in regards to the struggle resuming have seen extra sufferers heading to psychologists since June, native media in Iran have reported.
“The psychological strain from the 12-day struggle on the one hand, and runaway inflation and worth hikes on the opposite, has left society exhausted and unmotivated,” Dr. Sima Ferdowsi, a scientific psychologist and professor at Shahid Beheshti College, advised the Hamshahri newspaper in an interview printed in July.
Executions surge in 2025
Iran has confronted a number of nationwide protests in recent times, fueled by anger over the economic system, calls for for girls’s rights and requires the nation’s theocracy to vary.
In response to these protests and the June struggle, Iran has been placing prisoners to dying at a tempo unseen since 1988, when it executed hundreds on the finish of the Iran-Iraq struggle. The Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights and the Washington-based Abdorrahman Boroumand Heart for Human Rights in Iran put the variety of folks executed in 2025 at over 1,000, noting the quantity could possibly be increased as Iran doesn’t report on every execution.
