Iranian Efforts to Silence Dissidents in the West Have Become Routine, Says UN Special Rapporteur

Iran­ian expa­tri­ates increas­ing­ly per­ceive harass­ment, cyber­at­tacks, and sur­veil­lance by Tehran-linked actors as rou­tine and inescapable aspects of life abroad. On 21 Octo­ber 2025, Iran Inter­na­tion­al report­ed that UN Spe­cial Rap­por­teur Mai Sato crit­i­cized Iran’s con­tin­ued cam­paign of intim­i­da­tion against jour­nal­ists and activists liv­ing over­seas. She stat­ed that many mem­bers of the Iran­ian dias­po­ra now regard state-spon­sored threats and sur­veil­lance as an unavoid­able aspect of their dai­ly exis­tence. The arti­cle begins:

Many Iran­ian jour­nal­ists and activists abroad have begun to treat state intim­i­da­tion and harass­ment as part of dai­ly life, UN Spe­cial Rap­por­teur on Iran Mai Sato said on Tues­day, crit­i­ciz­ing the per­sis­tence of what she called Iran’s transna­tion­al repres­sion. “What once felt dan­ger­ous has become rou­tine. For many, nor­mal­iz­ing these threats is no longer a choice” said Sato on a social media post writ­ten in Per­sian on X. A group of Unit­ed Nations human rights experts joined Sato in a state­ment in August say­ing threats and harass­ment of BBC Per­sian and Iran Inter­na­tion­al jour­nal­ists have surged since a 12-day war between Iran and Israel in June. Jour­nal­ists abroad and their fam­i­lies inside Iran have faced death threats, sur­veil­lance, and smear cam­paigns, while some rel­a­tives have been inter­ro­gat­ed, detained, or had their pass­ports con­fis­cat­ed. They said women jour­nal­ists face par­tic­u­lar­ly vio­lent gen­der-based harass­ment, both online and through intim­i­da­tion of their rel­a­tives inside Iran. Iran Inter­na­tion­al filed an urgent appeal in August with the experts urg­ing them to take action against Iran over seri­ous risks to the lives and safe­ty of their jour­nal­ists world­wide and rel­a­tives inside Iran. UN experts said sev­er­al UK-based jour­nal­ists have required police pro­tec­tion, with some forced to move into safe hous­es or relo­cate abroad.

Read more: https://www.iranintl.com/en/202510210600

Key Points

• UN Spe­cial Rap­por­teur Mai Sato for­mal­ly con­demned Iran’s sys­tem­at­ic efforts to silence dis­si­dents and media fig­ures resid­ing out­side its borders.

• Iran­ian expa­tri­ates increas­ing­ly per­ceive harass­ment, cyber­at­tacks, and sur­veil­lance by Tehran-linked actors as rou­tine and inescapable aspects of life abroad.

• The rapporteur’s state­ment under­scores the ongo­ing nature of Iran’s transna­tion­al repres­sion, which tar­gets crit­ics regard­less of their geo­graph­ic location.

• The UN’s renewed focus inten­si­fies diplo­mat­ic pres­sure on Iran over its extrater­ri­to­r­i­al human rights vio­la­tions and coer­cive tac­tics against the diaspora.

Iran’s Systematic Campaign Against Foreign-Based Opposition Media

Iran’s regime is expand­ing its oper­a­tional reach with­in Europe and the West, sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly tar­get­ing polit­i­cal and media oppo­nents through cyber offen­sives, sur­ro­gate influ­ence net­works, and clan­des­tine polit­i­cal oper­a­tions. Iran­ian cyber actors have orches­trat­ed large-scale dig­i­tal assaults against oppo­si­tion media, com­pro­mis­ing sen­si­tive data and poten­tial­ly enabling fur­ther harass­ment or intel­li­gence-gath­er­ing against Iran­ian dis­si­dents and jour­nal­ists in the diaspora.

In the Unit­ed King­dom, Iran­ian-linked actors have orches­trat­ed hybrid shad­ow warfare—combining dis­in­for­ma­tion, cyber intru­sions, and phys­i­cal threats against jour­nal­ists and oppo­si­tion fig­ures—while exploit­ing legal and finan­cial loop­holes to embed influ­ence with­in British insti­tu­tions. Recent intel­li­gence reports high­light ris­ing threats against UK dis­si­dents and jour­nal­ists, while covert net­works in Europe exploit aca­d­e­m­ic and cul­tur­al part­ner­ships to advance Tehran’s ide­o­log­i­cal agen­da. The Islam­ic Repub­lic of Iran Broad­cast­ing (IRIB) remains cen­tral to these efforts, blend­ing state media with forced con­fes­sions and inter­na­tion­al pro­pa­gan­da to rein­force Tehran’s ide­o­log­i­cal objectives.

The regime has a doc­u­ment­ed his­to­ry of tar­get­ing dis­si­dents and crit­ics abroad, includ­ing kid­nap­pings and assas­si­na­tions attrib­uted to Iran­ian intel­li­gence ser­vices. These activ­i­ties are con­sis­tent with a pat­tern of Iran­ian state-backed threats against jour­nal­ists, dis­si­dents, and polit­i­cal fig­ures resid­ing in Europe—cases cor­rob­o­rat­ed by inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tions into assas­si­na­tion attempts, kid­nap plots, and cyber­at­tacks tar­get­ing crit­ics abroad.

Exter­nal references:

• Iran: UN experts alarmed by esca­lat­ing threats against Iran Inter­na­tion­al media
• Mai Sato Report: Expos­ing Iran’s Human Rights Vio­la­tions on Women, Pris­on­ers, and Minorities
• The Iran Threat

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