Four-minute read
For years, Iran’s security agencies have treated contact with the outside world as suspicion by default—detaining students over scholarships, harassing academics after conferences, and threatening journalists for speaking to foreign media. What is new is not the behavior but the paperwork. The Majlis (the regime’s legislative body) is now codifying those entrenched practices with the “Countering Intelligence Service Infiltration” bill—presented in July 2025 and fast-tracked since—formally moving the state from informal intimidation to statutory criminalization.
The core change is legal certainty for old habits. Under the bill, any Iranian invited to study, research, or attend a conference abroad must secure pre-approval from the Ministry of Intelligence (MOIS). The ministry will publish an annual list of “authorized” governments and institutions; cooperation with anyone not on the list becomes a chargeable offense, carrying six months to two years in prison. For years, universities and local intelligence offices quietly exercised this veto. The bill simply writes it into law, converting discretionary pressure into blanket prohibition.
#Iran's Regime Tightens Grip with Harsh New Espionage Law https://t.co/EPfTqGQrbS
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) July 1, 2025
Media controls
The press clause does the same. Interviews with foreign outlets will require prior permission via a MOIS portal; contact with media funded by the United States or Israel can draw up to six years. Sending photos or footage abroad during “crisis or unrest” becomes punishable by up to five years. None of this is conceptually novel: since at least 2009, authorities have detained or smeared reporters for “cooperating with enemy media.” The bill formalizes that playbook and outsources censorship to fear of prosecution, pushing even cautious reporters and citizen journalists into silence.
Iran’s NGOs, unions, professional associations, and parties have long faced opaque scrutiny over funding. The bill turns that environment into strict liability: no funds from embassies, foreign governments, or non-Iranian organizations without a tripartite sign-off from the Foreign Ministry, MOIS, and IRGC Intelligence. Violations trigger dissolution, prison terms for directors, and up to fifteen-year bans on cultural or social activity. The message is clear: what used to be an unpredictable red line is now a statutory wall.
#Tehran’s War Fallout Exposes a Cornered Regime Gripped by Fear, Crackdown, and Global Isolationhttps://t.co/tE9tEIP6H5
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) July 1, 2025
Criminalizing exchange
Cultural production is swept in as well. Films, books, or art deemed “produced under the guidance of foreigners,” or works that “depict Iran negatively,” can be prosecuted; penalties include fines indexed to production costs and permanent exclusion from state services. International collaboration—even with bodies like UNESCO—is prohibited unless explicitly ratified by parliament. Likewise, dual vetting of scholarships (Higher Education + MOIS) embeds ideological control into academic mobility. The policy through-line is familiar: learning is licit only when loyal.
Khabar Online’s summary of Article 1 casts a wide net—anyone “under the guidance or training” of foreign services, international organizations, non-Iranian entities, the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), or “deviant sects,” in “explicit conflict” with “the Revolution’s principles.” Routine acts—unapproved interviews, data sharing, contact with blacklisted outlets—slot into six penalty tiers that reach 15 years and carry asset confiscation and lifetime employment bans. Crucially, jurisdiction sits with the Revolutionary Courts, with MOIS and IRGC Intelligence designated as investigative arms, erasing even the appearance of independent oversight.
The timing is not incidental. On October 1, 2025, the Guardian Council approved the companion law on “Intensifying Punishment for Espionage and Collaboration with Hostile States,” expanding capital exposure under “corruption on earth.” Together, the statutes build a legal continuum where ordinary professional activity can be re-labelled as espionage, and dissent can escalate to capital-eligible.
Khamenei Pulls Strings in Coordinated Crackdown as #Iran’s Revisionist Faction Refuses to Yieldhttps://t.co/KPbDxjMj8L
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) August 27, 2025
What codification changes in practice
-
Predictability for prosecutors, uncertainty for everyone else. Discretionary harassment becomes chargeable conduct with set sentences.
-
Pre-emptive chilling. Journalists will avoid foreign contact; academics will cancel exchanges; NGOs will drop international grants; artists will self-censor by default.
-
Extraterritorial reach. By naming foreign media and organizations and criminalizing routine communication, the state extends transnational intimidation—blacklisting relatives inside Iran and deterring diaspora engagement.
By requiring prior intelligence approval to speak to foreign media, the bill collides with Article 19 of the ICCPR (freedom of expression), which prohibits prior restraint except under narrow, necessary conditions. Conditioning scholarships and exchanges on security vetting undercuts Article 13 of the ICESCR (the right to education) and the broader norm of academic freedom. For years, the Iranian regime has breached these standards in practice; the bill codifies the breach, daring external monitors to treat repression as domestic lawfulness.
Watch and judge why this insider is warning that the regime is destined for a collapse or #IranRevolution pic.twitter.com/Ysu6LbOhnz
— NCRI-FAC (@iran_policy) January 1, 2024
The political logic: legislate the fear
Officials justify the package as defense against “psychological warfare” and espionage. The deeper logic is defensive inwardness after the 2022–23 nationwide uprisings and repeated protest cycles since 2017. The security state has always treated communication as contagion: a Skype call to a newsroom, a seminar in Europe, an NGO training. Codification does two things: it simplifies prosecution and delegitimizes contact by statute, allowing authorities to say, “We are enforcing law,” rather than admitting they are criminalizing speech and association.
The immediate effect will be compliance through silence. The medium-term effect is a brain drain acceleration—students and researchers will leave and not return; skilled professionals will reroute careers abroad. Universities will be cut out of networks that drive science and innovation; independent associations will wither for lack of legal oxygen. Culture will flatten, because risk-free art is propaganda.
This is not a new turn so much as the final turn of the screw. Tehran’s “Counter-Infiltration” bill does not create a security state; it legalizes the one that already exists. By treating knowledge, communication, and cultural exchange as security threats, the leadership is writing its long-standing fear of openness into statute. The result is a country where ordinary contact is contraband, journalism is a pre-cleared transaction, and education is permissioned by intelligence service. For the regime, codification promises administrative ease. For Iranian society, it promises fewer voices, fewer bridges, and fewer reasons to stay.