Iran and Transnational Digital Repression

iran_transnational_digital_repression

How the Iranian regime targets dissent beyond its borders

A great deal has been written about repression inside Iran: political imprisonment, executions, censorship, surveillance, violence against women, and the criminalisation of dissent. Less well understood is the extent to which the Iranian regime has projected parts of this repressive system beyond its borders, targeting members of the Iranian diaspora living in democratic societies.

This is known as transnational repression: the use of threats, intimidation, surveillance, harassment, coercion, violence or institutional pressure by a state against people outside its own territory. Freedom House describes transnational repression as a practice in which governments reach across borders to silence dissent among diaspora and exile communities, using both physical and non-physical tactics, including digital threats, family intimidation and document controls.

Iran is widely identified as one of the most active states using these methods. Freedom House’s country case study on Iran describes a long pattern of threats, surveillance, intimidation and violence directed at Iranian activists, journalists and dissidents abroad. :contentReference[oaicite:1]{index=1}

Why the Iranian diaspora matters

The Iranian diaspora is politically, culturally and digitally significant. Iranian communities abroad include journalists, writers, women’s-rights activists, former political prisoners, human-rights defenders, monarchists, secular democrats, ethnic-minority activists, artists, academics and campaigners against executions.

Many of these figures are able to speak, publish, organise and communicate in ways that would be impossible inside Iran. They can document abuses, support protests, influence foreign media, brief politicians, organise demonstrations, preserve cultural memory and challenge the regime’s legitimacy from abroad.

For this reason, the diaspora is not simply a community outside Iran. It is also a political space that the regime seeks to monitor, divide and control.

A selective system of pressure

Iran does not appear to treat the diaspora as one single group. Instead, it appears to distinguish between those it can use, those it can ignore, and those it sees as a threat.

Some people may be cultivated, pressured or used as intermediaries. Others are largely ignored because they are not politically active or visible. Those seen as dangerous — especially activists, journalists, former prisoners and cultural figures with public influence — may be targeted through more direct forms of intimidation.

This broadly corresponds to the framework used by Fiona B. Adamson and Enze Han, who describe how regimes may elevate, ignore or repress different sections of a diaspora. In Iran’s case, the important point is how these categories operate in practice: those who are elevated or pressured may help isolate those who are repressed, while those who are ignored may still absorb the wider climate of fear.

Direct repression

Direct repression includes the most visible and extreme forms of targeting: surveillance, threats, attempted kidnapping, assassination plots and the use of state-linked agents or criminal intermediaries.

The attempted kidnapping plot against Iranian-American journalist and women’s-rights activist Masih Alinejad is one of the clearest examples. Freedom House described the plot as a “flagrant case of transnational repression”, while the US Department of Justice has also linked later plots against her to efforts by the Iranian government to intimidate, harass and kidnap her because of her work exposing human-rights abuses.

These cases show that Iran’s repression abroad is not limited to online harassment or rhetoric. In some cases, it involves credible physical danger.

Indirect repression and proxy pressure

Iran’s more common methods, however, are often less visible. The regime and its supporters can use proxies, intermediaries, online networks, ideologically aligned figures, coerced individuals or opportunists to create pressure around a target.

This can include:

  • online harassment
  • threats sent through social media or messaging apps
  • smear campaigns
  • accusations of collaboration, corruption or sexual misconduct
  • pressure on family members inside Iran
  • surveillance of public events
  • attempts to divide exile communities
  • disinformation presented as “community concern”

These methods allow the regime to maintain plausible deniability. A campaign may look like ordinary online conflict, personal drama or political disagreement, while still producing the same effect as repression: isolation, fear, reputational damage and silence.

Digital transnational repression

Digital tools have made this form of repression easier, faster and harder to attribute.

Iranian activists abroad often rely on the same digital spaces that expose them to risk: social media, encrypted messaging apps, email, cloud storage, online events and public-facing platforms. These tools allow activists to document abuses and reach international audiences, but they also give hostile actors new ways to monitor, intimidate and attack them.

Research by Marcus Michaelsen on Iranian exiled activists argues that digital communication technologies both enable new forms of state repression beyond borders and reshape older tactics of surveillance and intimidation. Citizen Lab has also described digital transnational repression as a long-running area of concern affecting human-rights defenders, journalists and diaspora communities.

In the Iranian context, digital repression may include:

  • monitoring public posts and protest activity
  • collecting screenshots of online statements
  • identifying participants in demonstrations abroad
  • phishing attempts against activists and journalists
  • hacking or attempted account takeover
  • coordinated harassment campaigns
  • doxxing and exposure of private information
  • sexualised smears and reputational attacks
  • pressure on relatives inside Iran based on online activity abroad

The UK Home Office’s 2025 country policy note on Iran states that Iranian intelligence officials monitor and target high-profile Iranian dissidents abroad, including in the UK and other Western countries, and that this can include online activities and repeated or high-profile participation in anti-regime demonstrations.

Digitally amplified smear campaigns

One of the most damaging forms of digital repression is the smear campaign.

A smear campaign is not just personal abuse. In the context of transnational repression, it can function as a political weapon. Its purpose is to make the target harder to believe, harder to protect, harder to platform and harder to work with.

Digital platforms make this especially effective. A rumour can be repeated across social media accounts, private groups, messaging channels and comment threads until it appears to be a “community controversy”. Screenshots can be circulated without context. False accusations can be translated, reshared and revived whenever the target receives public attention.

Sexualised smears are especially harmful because they exploit existing social prejudice. They can be used against both women and men, but often work by attaching shame, scandal or suspicion to the target. The aim is not necessarily to persuade everyone. It is enough to create doubt, hesitation and institutional caution.

This matters because the target may then face a second layer of harm: not only harassment from hostile actors, but distancing from venues, publishers, journalists, funders, police, cultural organisations or civil society groups who fear becoming involved in something “controversial”.

Mediated repression: when institutions are manipulated

This is where digital harassment can become mediated repression.

Mediated repression occurs when institutions in the host country are pressured, misled or manipulated into restricting the target. The Iranian state does not need to censor a writer directly if a venue cancels their event. It does not need to arrest a journalist if a newsroom decides the person is too risky to work with. It does not need to silence an activist if police or civil society organisations misunderstand a coordinated intimidation campaign as a personal dispute.

In this way, online smears and digital intimidation can produce offline consequences:

  • cancelled events
  • withdrawn invitations
  • reputational damage
  • reduced media coverage
  • reluctance from funders or publishers
  • weakened police response
  • isolation from the wider community

The danger is that democratic institutions may unintentionally enforce the aims of an authoritarian state by treating the targeted person as the problem, rather than recognising the wider pattern of repression.

Family intimidation and digital visibility

For many Iranian activists abroad, the greatest pressure is not directed only at them personally. It is directed at their relatives inside Iran.

Digital visibility can increase this risk. A speech, article, social media post, protest photograph or interview abroad may be used to threaten parents, siblings or other family members inside Iran. This creates a powerful form of coercion by proxy: the activist may be physically safe in Europe or North America, but emotionally and politically vulnerable through loved ones still inside Iran.

This produces self-censorship. People may avoid speaking publicly, attending demonstrations, publishing under their own name or reporting threats because they fear consequences for family members.

Why cultural figures are targeted

Iran’s repression abroad is not limited to formal political organisers. Cultural figures can also be treated as threats.

Writers, poets, journalists, singers, dancers, filmmakers and artists can carry political meaning because they shape memory, identity and public feeling. Their work may document repression, preserve banned experiences, challenge official narratives or give symbolic form to dissent.

This is particularly important in the Iranian context, where poetry, music and literature have long been connected to public life, political memory and moral authority. A poet or writer in exile may therefore be threatening not because they command an organisation, but because they can reach people emotionally and internationally.

A layered system of control

Iran’s transnational repression should not be understood as a series of isolated online arguments, private disputes or occasional threats. It is better understood as a layered system that can combine:

  • direct threats and surveillance
  • proxy intimidation
  • digital monitoring
  • harassment and smear campaigns
  • pressure on family members
  • reputational warfare
  • manipulation of host-country institutions
  • physical plots in the most serious cases

Digital mechanisms are central to this system. They allow the regime and its supporters to monitor activists, amplify rumours, coordinate harassment, identify networks, intimidate relatives and create uncertainty around the target.

The result is a diaspora environment shaped by fear, suspicion and fragmentation. This serves several purposes for the Iranian regime: it weakens organised opposition abroad, damages the credibility of dissidents, discourages public participation, protects regime narratives and makes democratic societies less willing or less able to support those targeted by transnational repression.

Why recognition matters

Recognising these tactics is essential. Without that recognition, digital harassment may be dismissed as online drama, smear campaigns as community gossip, and threats as private conflict. But for Iranian activists, writers and cultural figures abroad, these tactics can form part of a broader system of authoritarian control.

Democratic institutions, cultural venues, publishers, journalists, police and civil society organisations need to understand that reputational attacks and digital intimidation can be part of transnational repression. The appropriate response is not to withdraw from targeted people, but to assess risks responsibly, protect freedom of expression and avoid becoming unwilling participants in the silencing of dissidents.

Sources

Human rights abuses, executions and political prisoners

Surveillance, censorship and information control

Iranian diaspora and diaspora politics

Iran’s transnational repression and Grey Zone Strategy

Poetry, protest and cultural resistance