Three-minute read
Iran’s judiciary used the 57th session of its mass trial against members of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) to escalate pressure on Western governments, demanding extraditions while invoking unrest in Europe as a warning against allowing the opposition movement to operate abroad.
The October 20 hearing in Tehran concerned 104 individuals affiliated with the MEK as well as the organization itself as a legal entity. Presiding Judge Amir-Reza Dehghani called on European governments to facilitate the extradition of defendants and argued that countries hosting people accused by Tehran of terrorism were weakening their own security.
What distinguished this session from many of the preceding hearings was the judge’s attempt to connect the case directly to contemporary unrest in Europe.
Using France’s Protests as a Warning
Dehghani pointed specifically to disturbances in France, arguing that countries which provide refuge to networks accused by Tehran of violence ultimately risk importing instability themselves. Regime-linked coverage summarized his argument starkly: sheltering those accused of terrorism amounts to adding “fuel” to Europe’s unrest.
The clerical regime says the @Mojahedineng has no support inside Iran. Its own judges, prosecutors, clerics, and state media tell a very different story.
By @khansari_m https://t.co/lgplCwc2kR— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) October 7, 2026
The intervention was nevertheless politically significant. Iranian state media have been highlighting unrest in European countries as evidence of instability and alleged Western hypocrisy, while the regime routinely characterizes demonstrations inside Iran as products of foreign interference. In the courtroom, the two narratives converged: domestic unrest in France was repurposed as an argument for European governments to restrict Tehran’s principal organized opposition.
The judge’s demands went well beyond rhetorical criticism. The court again pressed foreign governments to cooperate with Tehran over defendants living abroad and presented extradition as an international obligation. Previous sessions in the same proceeding have also sought the identification and seizure of assets belonging to defendants and the MEK. In September 2024, Dehghani formally ordered the identification and freezing of assets connected to those on trial.
From Domestic Trial to Foreign-Policy Instrument
The proceeding increasingly resembles more than an attempt to prosecute historical allegations.
For nearly three years, Tehran has repeatedly used the so-called courtroom to address France, Britain, the United States and other countries where Iranian opposition figures reside. In earlier sessions, Dehghani had already questioned why governments that once listed the MEK as a terrorist organization later removed it from those lists and argued that foreign officials should be held accountable for continuing to host its members.
Deeply troubled by the @UN Special Rapporteur's report exposing its atrocity crimes and #genocide in the 1980s, the world's leading executioner per capita is using a sham trial in #Tehran to attack the UN. pic.twitter.com/TLSxwMB8an
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) September 19, 2024
The 57th session took that argument further by presenting the continued presence of Iranian dissidents abroad as a threat to the host societies themselves.
That creates an important contradiction in Tehran’s broader portrayal of the MEK.
Regime media regularly describe the organization as isolated, defeated and without meaningful support. Yet the judiciary has now devoted 57 public sessions to prosecuting 104 of its members and the organization itself, while repeatedly urging foreign governments to restrict its financial, legal and political space.
The language of the latest hearing offered little indication that Tehran regards the organization as merely a historical adversary.
Instead, the judge depicted its continued presence in Europe as sufficiently consequential to threaten public order abroad and pressed Western governments to help dismantle the environment in which the organization operates. Whatever the evidentiary basis of those assertions, they demonstrate that Iranian authorities continue to treat the MEK as an active political and security concern.
Desperately attempting to spin new narratives about the @Mojahedineng during its staged trial, the clerical regime is essentially undermining its own decades-long #propaganda against the movement. This not only weakens Khomeini's defamation tactics but also inadvertently… pic.twitter.com/WkAzHs3ZGC
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) May 12, 2024
A Courtroom Claim of Fairness
Another contradiction ran through the hearing itself.
Dehghani opened by emphasizing the presumption of innocence and saying the court would not become an instrument of vengeance. State media quoted him promising adherence to law even when confronting allegations such as baghi—armed rebellion—or efsad-e fel-arz, corruption on earth.
Yet the same session publicly characterized the defendants through the language of terrorism while the so-called judge urged foreign governments to extradite them and warned Europeans of the consequences of continuing to host them.
Oddly, Tehran is increasingly presenting the trial internationally as a conventional judicial process while simultaneously using it to advance demands against governments with which it has wider political disputes.
The reference to France made the underlying purpose particularly visible.
A court ostensibly determining individual criminal responsibility was also delivering a geopolitical message: Western governments should reduce the operating space available to Iran’s organized opposition—or, Tehran claims, face consequences themselves.