From approximately 13 July 2026, several Telegram channels reportedly began publishing photographs, telephone numbers, social-media information and sexualised allegations concerning residents of Lorestan Province in western Iran. Women and girls were particularly exposed to sexual humiliation, threats and the risk of violence within their families. Some photographs had been taken from publicly accessible social-media accounts, while others reportedly included private images and communications disclosed without consent.
Those operating the channels allegedly demanded cryptocurrency payments in return for removing the published material. Iranian authorities also reported that a bank account had been used to receive money connected to the alleged extortion.
On 14 July 2026, corresponding to 23 Tir 1405 in Iran’s official calendar, the Public and Revolutionary Prosecutor of Lorestan announced the arrest of three principal suspects. He also stated that more than 200 complaints had been registered and that a specialised judicial branch had been assigned to investigate the case. On 16 July 2026, the provincial police referred to a wider network involving a channel manager, several operators and a woman whose bank account had allegedly been used to transfer funds. Investigations into individuals suspected of supplying photographs and personal information were continuing.
The publications have reportedly led to physical violence, expulsion from family homes, psychological distress, self-harm and the loss of educational or employment opportunities. Allegations of suicide and killing have also circulated. HANA has not independently verified all such claims and does not present them as established facts. The available information nevertheless shows a pattern of extortion, threats, sexualised humiliation and serious social and economic harm.
Iranian criminal law contains several provisions that may apply. Article 669 of Book Five of the Islamic Penal Code criminalises threats to kill, cause physical, reputational or financial harm, or disclose a secret. It applies whether or not the perpetrator demands money, property or another act in return.
Article 697 criminalises the express and unproven attribution of conduct that constitutes a criminal offence. It may therefore apply where women are falsely accused of unlawful sexual conduct or another criminal act.
Articles 744 to 746 of Book Five of the Islamic Penal Code, which reproduce Articles 16 to 18 of the Computer Crimes Act 2009, address certain forms of online abuse. Article 744 criminalises the alteration and publication of another person’s image, audio or video where this causes reputational harm. Article 745 criminalises the unauthorised publication of private or family images, recordings or secrets where the publication causes harm or reputational injury. Article 746 criminalises the publication of false information through computer or telecommunications systems with the intention of harming another person or disturbing public opinion.
These provisions may permit the prosecution of individual perpetrators, but they do not provide a comprehensive legal response to image-based sexual abuse, sexualised redistribution, digital coercion or the hostile use of publicly accessible photographs.
The limits of Article 745 are particularly important. Its protection is directed mainly at material considered private or connected to family life. It does not clearly protect a photograph that a woman originally posted on a public social-media account. Article 744 may apply if the photograph was digitally altered, while Articles 669, 697 or 746 may apply where threats or false allegations are involved. A legal gap remains, however, where an unaltered public photograph is copied, placed in a sexualised context and redistributed in order to humiliate, extort or expose a woman to violence.
A photograph being publicly accessible does not amount to consent to every later use. A woman who posts an image online does not consent to its use for sexual humiliation, fabricated allegations, commercial exploitation or intimidation. Iranian law nevertheless continues to make protection depend heavily on whether the image was private and whether its publication caused reputational harm.
The central question should be whether the woman consented to the particular use of her image. Instead, the legal inquiry often turns on whether her honour, chastity or social reputation was damaged. This shifts attention away from the perpetrator’s conduct and towards the woman’s perceived respectability.
This limitation is connected to the constitutional foundations of the Iranian legal system. Article 4 of the Constitution requires all civil, criminal and other laws to conform to Islamic criteria. Article 12 identifies Twelver Jaʿfari Shi’a jurisprudence as the official religious foundation of the state. Articles 20 and 21 recognise equality before the law and women’s rights only within the limits of Islamic criteria.
Within this legal structure, women are frequently protected as members of families whose honour must be preserved, rather than as independent holders of rights over their bodies, sexuality, images and private lives.
The contradiction is especially visible in the enforcement of compulsory veiling. The note to Article 638 of Book Five of the Islamic Penal Code criminalises the appearance of women in public without legally prescribed Islamic hijab. The state therefore claims direct authority to regulate how women present their bodies in public.
When a woman’s body or image is used for extortion, sexual humiliation or threats of violence, legal protection becomes conditional on proving privacy, reputational injury or another recognised offence. The state exercises broad authority over women’s appearance but does not recognise an equally clear right of women to control the use and sexualisation of their own images.
The arrest and prosecution of individual Telegram channel administrators may provide accountability in this case. It does not correct the underlying legal failure.
Iran requires a legal framework that treats consent, rather than family honour or social respectability, as the central standard. It must cover private and publicly accessible images, altered and unaltered content, sexualised redistribution, threats, extortion and conduct that foreseeably exposes women to violence.
Confidential reporting procedures, rapid content-removal mechanisms, protection against retaliation and access to legal and psychological support are also necessary. As long as the law remains more effective in regulating women’s bodies than in protecting women’s authority over them, its response will remain structurally deficient.
HANA Human Rights Organization
16 July 2026