With a presence in nearly every city and town across Iran, the paramilitary Basij volunteer corps has an ever-increasing influence on life in the Islamic Republic. Authorities created the Basij, which means mobilization in Persian, just after the country's 1979 Islamic Republic. It is part of Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guard. Photo: In this Thursday, August 22, 2013 photo, a female member of the Basij paramilitary militia aims a rifle as a trainer looks over her shoulder in Tehran, Iran. (Photo by Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo)

A cleric and a woman pray behind a closed door of Masoume shrine in the city of Qom, some 80 miles (125 kilometers) south of the capital Tehran, Iran, Monday, March 16, 2020. On Monday, Iran closed the Masoume shrine, a major pilgrimage site in the city of Qom, the epicenter of the country's new coronavirus outbreak. Authorities were already restricting access and barring pilgrims from kissing or touching the shrine, but it had remained open. (Photo by AP Photo)

A young Iranian woman walks in Tehran on June 14, 2021, ahead of the June 18 presidential elections. Iran is gearing up for a presidential election on June 18 but many young people are more focussed on the daily struggle to survive and their dreams for the future. Jobs are scarce in a recession-hit economy battered by sanctions, a crisis exacerbated by the region's worst outbreak of the Covid pandemic. (Photo by Atta Kenare/AFP Photo)

A woman reads a newspaper with a front-page report on the crash of the Iranian president's helicopter outside a kiosk in Tehran on May 20, 2024. Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi was declared dead on May 20 after rescue teams found his crashed helicopter in a fog-shrouded western mountain region, sparking mourning in the Islamic republic. (Photo by Atta Kenare/AFP Photo)

Iranian mourners cover themselves with mud during Ashoura, marking the death anniversary of Imam Hussein, the grandson of Islam's Prophet Muhammad, at the city of Bijar, west of the capital Tehran, Iran, Thursday, November 14, 2013. Hussein, one of Shiite Islam's most beloved saints, was killed in a 7th century battle at Karbala, Iraq. (Photo by Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo)

People wear masks to help guard against the Coronavirus in downtown Tehran, Iran, Sunday, February 23, 2020. On Sunday Iran's health ministry raised the death toll from the new virus to 8 people in the country, amid concerns that clusters there, as well as in Italy and South Korea, could signal a serious new stage in its global spread. (Photo by Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo)

An Iranian girl wearing a costume inspired in the fictional folklore character Hajji Firuz, dances in Tehran on March 17, 2021 as Iranians prepare to celebrate Noruz, the Iranian New Year. Noruz, “new day” in Persian, is the New Year festivity celebrated in Iran as well as in Afghanistan and Kurdish regions in several countries. It begins with the spring equinox and symbolises rebirth. (Photo by Atta Kenare/AFP Photo)

Two Iranian women walk past a mural depicting a flying dove at a street in Tehran, Iran, 01 November 2021. The Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced that the Islamic Republic is ready to return to nuclear talks in Vienna before the end of November. Iran also proposed to the US administration to lift the sanctions and to start negotiations. Iran is facing an economic crisis under US heavy sanctions following the United States' withdrawal from a nuclear deal in 2018. (Photo by Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA/EFE)