As regional conflict between Iran, Israel and the United States escalates, the Iranian government has launched a broadened crackdown on exiled opposition voices, leveraging collective punishment of family members still residing in Iran and asset seizure to silence dissent, according to multiple activists who spoke to the Associated Press. This latest wave of repression comes amid a long-running government campaign against internal dissent that accelerated during nationwide anti-government protests earlier this year, which the regime responded to with a near-total internet blackout that has complicated the work of international rights monitors tracking the crackdown. Independent watchdogs estimate that Iranian security forces have killed thousands of protesters since the mass demonstrations began.
The rising tensions with the U.S. and Israel have led Iranian authorities to harshly increase pressure on any individual found communicating with foreign media or overseas opposition figures, and that coercion has now spilled across borders to target exiled activists through their loved ones at home. Multiple exiled dissidents shared firsthand accounts of the regime’s tactics with the AP, painting a clear picture of the collective punishment strategy.
Hossein Razzagh, a former political prisoner who escaped Iran for Europe last year, told reporters that Tehran’s intelligence agents arrested his non-political brother Ali on March 15, pulling him from his Tehran home. The only contact the family has had since was a brief, seconds-long phone call Ali made to his wife from a facility run by Iran’s Intelligence Ministry. The agency has confirmed the detention is tied to Ali’s connection to Razzagh, and no further communication has been allowed, Razzagh said.
Paris-based exiled activist Behnam Chegini reported that his 20-year-old niece was detained for one week starting March 10, shortly after she returned to her parents’ home in Arak from her Tehran university, which closed amid the regional war. She was eventually released on bail but remains barred from leaving the country, and Chegini said the detention is unambiguously tied to his opposition activity: “It is at least in part because she is my niece and they know that.”
Sareh Sedighi, another dissident who fled Iran after her 2021 death sentence was overturned, said authorities seized her chronically ill mother from her home in the western city of Urmia last month. “The Islamic Republic took my mother away to make me be quiet,” Sedighi said, noting her mother requires daily insulin injections to manage ongoing health conditions. Mahshid Nazemi, a former political prisoner now based in France, added that at least one of her close friends inside Iran has been detained and interrogated repeatedly for information about her contacts with Nazemi.
Beyond detaining relatives, Iranian authorities have also begun seizing the assets of high-profile exiled critics under a new anti-espionage law passed during last year’s 12-day war with Israel. The legislation harshly penalizes any media or cultural activity deemed to support Iran’s foreign adversaries, clearing the way for mass asset confiscation. On March 31, a judiciary spokesperson announced on state television that more than 200 indictments authorizing confiscations have already been issued, with more in process.
Borzou Arjmand, a prominent Iranian actor based in California, learned through news reports that all of his domestic assets had been seized by the state. Arjmand has been unable to return to Iran since he publicly supported the 2022 anti-government protests, and authorities already froze his domestic bank accounts years ago. He has also openly backed exiled opposition leader Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran’s last shah who has organized an international opposition coalition and expressed support for recent U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iranian targets. Arjmand said the crackdown on exiles is a deliberate effort to muzzle criticism of the regime: “Pressuring exiled figures is meant so the Iranian people’s voice doesn’t reach the world.”
Iranian semi-official news outlets have published lists of other exiled public figures targeted by asset seizures, including star national soccer player Sardar Azmoun, popular musician Mohsen Yeghaneh, and prominent university professor Ali Sharifi Zarchi. Both Yeghaneh and Zarchi have publicly voiced support for anti-government protesters on social media platforms.
International human rights organizations warn that repressive conditions across Iran are deteriorating rapidly as the regional conflict continues. Iranian security and judicial officials have publicly issued warnings that any new anti-government protests will be met with immediate lethal force, and state-run media regularly announces mass arrests of people labeled as “mercenaries,” “agents” of the U.S. and Israel, “royalist thugs” or “traitorous elements,” often accused of passing information to “hostile foreign networks.”
Mahmood Amiry-Moghhaddam, director of Norway-based rights group Iran Human Rights, told the AP his organization has documented hundreds of detentions across Iran since the current regional war began on February 28, relying on on-the-ground networks and official state media reports. He added that the actual total number of detentions is almost certainly far higher, as many arrests are never reported publicly. One high-profile detainee is renowned 64-year-old human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, who was pulled from her Tehran home by intelligence agents just weeks ago. Sotoudeh had been released on bail months earlier to receive medical treatment for chronic health conditions following a previous detention, according to her daughter Mehraveh Khandan, who lives in Amsterdam.
The full scope of judicial processing for new detainees remains unclear, after Israeli airstrikes targeted multiple buildings tied to Iran’s judicial system. Musa Barzin, a lawyer for the international rights group Dadban, said the judicial system is effectively operating at half capacity: “It’s like they are half-closed. A lot of judges are staying home.” Many political prisoners are also facing deteriorating conditions in overcrowded facilities, with growing fears of violence amid ongoing airstrikes. The wife of a political prisoner held at Tehran’s notorious Evin Prison, speaking on condition of anonymity to protect her family, said the entire facility was targeted during airstrikes last year, and residents live in constant fear of new attacks. “Explosions and smoke can be heard and seen from everywhere in the city. Every time we hear a sound, we get scared,” she said.
This escalating pressure has prompted the long-fragmented Iranian opposition movement in exile to make new efforts to unify. Shortly before the current regional war began, Razzagh and other dissidents began organizing the Iran Freedom Congress, a major opposition conference set to take place in London that aims to bring together a broad coalition of pro-democracy groups. Razzagh represents a bloc of Iran-based opposition figures including Sotoudeh and imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi, and he described the gathering as a critical first step toward building a unified coalition to push for political transition in Iran.
For decades, Iran’s ruling Islamic theocracy has successfully crushed all organized internal political opposition, and activists in the diaspora say the ongoing regional war has only amplified the regime’s repression. Nazemi summed up the perilous position of ordinary Iranians caught between two sides of the conflict: “Israel and America are saying, well, if the Islamic Republic doesn’t kill you, let us bomb you. They’ve been taken hostage from both sides.”