Iran is world leading Crypto mining Country. There is study showing that Bitcoin mining rate in Iran is nearly 4.5% in whole Bitcoin world.
To be "leading crypto mining country" more than 4.5% of hashrate is needed. Although 4.5% is questionable and the truth is the real stats are unknown. It is a growing industry though and I personally speculate it is about 10% of bitcoin mining hashrate these days.
In my opinion these reasons are described below.
You forgot the biggest and only reason that matters. Iran has the most amount of natural resources in the world. This vast amount of energy has given Iran the cheapest electricity in the world ($0.002/KWH for home users and slightly higher for licensed bitcoin miners).
3. Iran is leading in Crypto and Bitcoin adoption due to fact that they cannot make Bank transactions from one country to other and they need such alternative gateways and Bitcoin and other such alts can provide them.
There are restrictions, but it is not impossible.
It's worth mentioning that a large portion of this number is under the direct influence/control of their government and that means it has a negative impact in various ways!
Issuing license for mining farms and regulating the mining industry is not the same as being under "direct influence/control" of the government. Any decent country has already applied regulations to such a massive industry specially when it has the potential of putting a lot of pressure on the national electrical grid.
Checking the adoption Index[1] Iran isn't even on the list.
Such lists are never reliable, unfortunately. They usually use the news in the media to build their lists which is always wrong.
I agree that the lack of access to bank transactions from one country to another
As I said, there are restrictions but there is no lack of access.
Mostly Iran uses cryptocurrency to evade US sanctions[2].
Wrong. It is not possible to evade sanctions ONLY by using a different form of payment.
Iranian government is executing people for protesting against a mandatory headscarf for women.
Please don't spread lies.
In 2019, Iran’s central bank banned trading of cryptocurrencies inside the country but the government allowed the use of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin to pay for imports.
Majority of the banks around the world have issued such bans. A lot of US banks have banned purchasing cryptos over the years too!
Mining, owning and even trading bitcoin are legal in Iran though. But for mining you have to apply for a license which is a simple process that practically costs nothing.