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"[This law] will not only lead to an increase in unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted diseases but also a hike in HIV positive cases," said Dr Masoud Mardani, a member of the National HIV/Aids committee and professor at Shahid Beheshti medical university.

The legislation, passed by parliament in March and approved by the constitutional watchdog Guardian Council last week, outlaws tubectomy, vasectomy, and the free dispensation of contraceptives other than where pregnancy would threaten a woman's health. The health ministry has instructed family health clinics to advise women over-35 to wait only a year before again becoming pregnant and under-35s to wait six months.

The legislation reflects concern at declining population growth in Iran. The annual population growth rate, according to government figures, has dropped to 1.23 percent from 4.21 percent in 1984 five years after the 1979 Revolution, a decline due both to better family planning and growth in women’s education. Iran’s annual growth is now below Saudi Arabia at 1.6 percent, Israel at 1.8 percent, Pakistan at 2 percent and Iraq at 2.3 precent.

To encourage population growth, the law obliges the government to offer incentives, including a 7.5-fold increase in child-benefit payments to government employees, interest-free loans, and the free allocation of 150-200 square meters of land to urban families with more than three children.

The reformist Etemad newspaper on Thursday called the new law "populistic" in using financial incentives. "It will bear consequences and damages that have been ignored," the newspaper said. Etemad linked the issue to the ‘populism’ of reducing fuel subsidies – which disproportionately benefit the better-off – in favor of cash hand-outs to the less well off.

Tara Sepehri Far, Beirut-based researcher in the Middle East and North Africa division of Human Rights Watch, attacked the new law for undermining “the rights, dignity, and health of half of the country’s population, denying them access to essential reproductive health care and information.” Sepehri Far said that trying to increase population growth through “restricting the right to health and privacy” was "a delusional understanding of policymaking."

In 2014 Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei announced that Iran should aim to increase the population – which is now around 85 million – to 150 million by 2050.

While the new law does not include a ban on pre-natal screening, doctors have been advised not to encourage it. The legislation has not taken up plans drawn up by the parliament's Special Committee for Population and Family to ban screening for Downs Syndrome, Trisomy 18, Trisomy 13, which have been compulsory and generally free in public clinics since 2001.

General Esmail Ghaani visited Iraq immediately after a drone attack on Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhimi’s residence on Sunday and met with several senior officials and Shiite militia commanders to contain a possible crisis in relations.

The drone attack that did not harm al-Kadhimi is believed to have been launched by Iran-backed militias whose political blocs lost in recent parliamentary elections and are contesting the results. They have been holding protests to change the election outcome.

Iran’s ambassador to Baghdad, Iraj Masjedi told Al Alam television that Ghaani reaffirmed Iran’s support for the election results but demanded that complaints and protests to be dealt with according to the law.

Iran has been building a network of political and military support within Iraq since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003, but since 2019, many Iraqis have been protesting Tehran’s influence, complaining that it contributes to corruption and mismanagement. Iraq witnessed large anti-government protests in 2019 and 2020.

One of the latest cases of nepotism in the Raisi administration is the nomination of Massoud Fayazi, a close relative of Tehran's mayor Alireza Zakani as education minister.

Iran International TV's correspondent Mojtaba Pourmohsen has revealed Fayazi's debatable academic credentials in an investigative report which he summarized in a tweet on November 10. These include a Ph.D. degree awarded by a committee that is not linked to any official academic institution. Even his earlier diploma in the area of civil engineering is also reportedly not quite sound.

According to the Iranian Labor News Agency (ILNA) several lawmakers expressed their opposition to Fayazi's nomination when Majles Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf announced it on Tuesday.

The Majles has already rejected Raisi's first choice for Minister of Education Hossein Baghgoli, a relative of the President's wife, in August. Members of the Cultural Committee of the Majles told reporters on Wednesday that they will try to make sure Fayazi also does not win the parliament's vote of confidence.

Earlier, Raisi's brother-in-law Ali Alamolhoda who was appointed as the chancellor of Payam Noor University resigned his post and Zakani was forced to fire his son-in-law under pressure from the press and social media a few days after he was appointed as his own deputy.

Nepotism was also a problem that led to scandals for Hassan Rouhani and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's administrations, but the problem appears to be even more widespread under President Ebrahim Raisi.

During the past weeks, several media reports accused Health Minister Bahram Einollahi, Economy Minister Ehsan Khandouzi and Oil Minister Javad Owji of giving key posts to their own or other officials' relatives in their agencies. Raisi, pressed on several occasions including during his meeting last week with reformist journalists, was forced to say that he would look into the matter. But subsequently he ordered his cabinet ministers to refute reports about appointing their relatives if such reports are not true.

Mohammad Saleh Jokar, an MP for Yazd told Khabar Onlinethat nepotism will lead to corruption and that he did not expect such things to happen in President Raisi's government. Meanwhile, according to the news agency of the Iranian parliament, Jalil Rahimi Jahanabadi, a conservative lawmaker close to Raisi, told reporters that appointing Fayazi as the Minister of education and ignoring capable individuals as candidates for the post would be an insult to Iranian teachers and cultural figures.

Another hardline lawmaker, Esmail Kowsari, criticized President Raisifor his failure to give key posts to well-qualified individuals and acknowledged that appointments based on kinship with top officials will inevitably lead to corruption.

Reformist figure Zahra Nejadbaharam also said that "appointing officials' in-laws to key posts is a disgrace for the Raisi administration and Raisi needs to intervene in the matter. This is an undesirable practice that damages the country's prestige."

According to Khabar Online, vice president for parliamentary affairs Mohammad Hosseini called on state officials to revoke nepotism-based appointments as the government's critics are likely to use them against the Raisi administration.

This latest bout of attacks on the new president adds to criticism about Raisi’s appointments in general. Many top officials are not qualified for their posts and after one hundred days, the government has done little to improve the economy and other crises gripping the country.

General Amirali Hajizadeh said that Israeli officials are well aware they can start a conflict, but Iran will be the one to bring it to its conclusion, which is “the destruction of the Zionist regime”.

Hajizadeh was speaking at a ceremony to mark the death of Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam, one of Iran’s earliest missile architects, who was killed when a huge explosion rocked a missile base 30 miles from Tehran in November 2012.

Moghaddam was among 17 top IRGC officers killed that day, in what many believed was an operation by Israeli intelligence. The incident was so shocking that even Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei attended the funeral at the time.

Hajizadeh also praised the advances in Iran’s military drone program saying that “it has become a thorn in the eyes of the enemies.” He added that Iran’s military power has grown to the extent that adversaries are asking to negotiate over its missiles.

Besides Iran's nuclear program, the West and regional countries are also concerned about Tehran's ballistic missiles and want to limit the program.

The Iran Atrocities Tribunal convened in London Wednesday with testimonies from family members who sent recorded messages or testified via video on the alleged killing of their relative in protests in November 2019.

Regina Paulose, a member of the tribunal's counsel and an attorney who focuses on genocide and crimes against humanity, told Iran International that there was no “question of impunity” for Iran’s leaders. "The people's tribunal makes it known that… the leaders have to be accountable," she said.

While ‘atrocity’ is not a legal term, the tribunal follows the model of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine, which was held 2009 to 2014 to review alleged Israeli war crimes against Palestinians following the notion of ‘people’s tribunals’ advocated by British philosopher Bertrand Russell.

"When a similar tribunal was held for Palestine, [Iran's] Press TV was probably the only media outlet in the world that broadcast it live," journalist Mehdi Mahdavi-Azad said. "When such tribunals are concerning itself, they boycott them and make no mention at all.”

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Mahboubeh Ramezanifard, mother of Pejman Gholipour, told the tribunal in a recorded message that she had kept her son’s “bloody clothes to show the world as evidence that my child was murdered.” Ramezanifard said her son’s jacket had “holes on both sides because he was shot with a live bullet."

In the afternoon session, United States-based opposition activist Masih Alinejad testified from her “own findings” that the Iranian authorities had made the families of those killed in the protests bury the corpses in remote places. Alinejad said this was “psychological torture.”

Alinejad also said “authorities” had threatened families not to talk to foreign media and has asked two for the cost of the bullet used to kill them. "The families believe there is no justice in Iran,” she said. “You can take your complaint against murderers to the murderers themselves.”

"We want this tribunal to hear the truth from witnesses," Shadi Sadr, a director of Justice for Iran, one of the tribunal organizers, told Iran International Wednesday.

Speaking via video to the tribunal, Nahid Shirbisheh said her son Pouya had been shot in the head while protesting peacefully alongside his mother in Karaj. She said hers was the first family to openly tell the world about “the atrocities of the Islamic Republic.”

"We didn't fear the consequences,” she said. “As a result, we have constantly been threatened and detained. Pouya's father is still in prison, in solitary confinement for seeking justice.”

The tribunal will in the next few days also hear the testimony of three Iranian police officers, a judicial official, and two doctors who tended to the wounded at their offices or homes to avoid arrest. These witnesses have travelled to London secretly.