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How Iran is using the war with Israel to ramp up repression by arresting ‘spies'
The day after Israel launched its 'Rising Lion' operation launching a first wave of missiles at Iran, 16 people were arrested by Tehran's regime for 'spreading rumours' on social media, opposition media Iran Wire reported.
Since then, such announcements have become a daily occurrence. At least 223 people have been arrested since the start of the conflict between Israel and Iran according media reports collated by The NGO Iran Rights Watch. It expects the real figure is significantly higher.
Norwegian NGO the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights puts the total number of arrests at 530, with detentions occurring in 27 of Iran's 30 provinces.
The Revolutionary Guards said Tuesday that a European who entered Iran as a tourist was accused of spying on "sensitive and military" sites and arrested in the country's southern Hormozgan province.
Throughout Iran, observers have reported a massive deployment of security services – namely members of the Basij paramilitary volunteer branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – carrying out arrests, often for vague reasons such as causing fires or acting suspiciously in proximity to military bases.
The common denominator among the accused is the claim that they have links to Mossad, the Israeli intelligence organisation responsible for covert activity overseas.
As the Iranian regime pursues 'spies' it claims have helped Israel with renewed vigour, those who have been arrested face swift and harsh sentencing.
Since Israeli strikes began, Iran has executed three prisoners on spying charges. On Monday Mohammad Amin Mahdavi-Shayesteh, who had been in prison since 2023, was hung at dawn for "intelligence cooperation' with Israel, Iran Wire reported.
Two other prisoners, Majid Mosayebi and Ismail Fakri, were executed on similar accusations the previous week.
The head of Iran's judiciary, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei, on Saturday called for cases of 'collaborators' with Israel to be expedited so they could face sentencing 'as soon as possible'.
'If the treacherous actions of these defendants are proven, they will immediately face severe punishment, and there will be no leniency or appeasement in this matter,' he said.
Israeli infiltration
Iran's suspicions of espionage are not unfounded. Prior to launching 'Rising Lion', Israeli agents infiltrated the upper echelons of Iran's leadership.
The massive strikes launched on June 13 that killed several of Iran's military leaders and nuclear scientists were the result of years of intelligence work.
As well as smuggling weapons into Iran, Israel also ' identified and tracked the movements of the key scientists and military officials who were assassinated', the New York Times reported, citing security sources.
In the months prior to the attack, Israeli agents set up a clandestine military base in Iran where drones were stockpiled, a senior Israeli security source told Israeli media outlet Haaretz.
Iranians working for Israel were enlisted to build the base, with 'Iranians opposed to the regime mak[ing] for a ready recruiting pool' for Mossad, a former Israeli intelligence official said to The Atlantic
Israel's overseas intelligence service had previously demonstrated its ability to act on Iranian soil with the assassination in Tehran of former Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, in July 2024.
The cumulation of these successful Israeli intelligence operations is a 'certain paranoia among the Iranian authorities,' said Jonathan Piron, a historian specialising in Iran for the Etopia research centre in Brussels.
A crackdown
Prior to the war with Israel, Iran regularly announced the arrest and execution of suspected agents allegedly working for overseas intelligence services, often Israeli.
Now in the midst of conflict, 'the regime plays off this paranoia and is using the current situation to crackdown on anyone it qualifies as an opponent in the name of defending the country', Piron said.
As well as arrests in the street, authorities are expanding a crackdown on the internet. Some 206 people have been arrested for suspicious online activity or content published online, according to the NGO, Hrana.
Iran's ministry for communications has explained regular internet backouts since the start of the conflict as a measure to block Israeli cyberattacks, but they are also a tool of repression, preventing the population from sharing information.
Pion said it is 'impossible to verify' whether the regime's sweeping arrests in the past two weeks are based on 'concrete' suspicions of espionage or not.
But NGOs that monitor Iran have been sounding the alarm. Iran Human Rights warned on Thursday of the potential for 'an intensification of repression and executions in the coming days'.
'Official calls for expediated trials and executions of those arrested for alleged collaboration with Israel show how the Iranian authorities weaponize the death penalty to assert control and instil fear among the people of Iran,' Amnesty International 's Deputy Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa Hussein Baoumi said on June 20.
'The authorities must ensure all those detained are protected from enforced disappearance, torture and other ill-treatment, and afforded fair trials at all times, including during armed conflict,' he added.
Iran is the country that carries out the second most executions in the world after China, according to the two NGOs. In 2024, at least 975 people were executed in Iran – a record high since monitoring began in 2008.
Fear of resistance
Despite talks of Israeli strikes weakening Iran's regime or even destroying it altogether, an internal wave of resistance against Iran's leadership does not seem to be on the horizon, for now.
'Since the start of the strikes, demonstrations against the regime have stopped completely,' Piron said.
There have been public statements from high-profile opposition figures such as Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi, calling for greater openness from the government, and 'some student movements that are very critical of the government have tried to mobilise protests, but they haven't taken off', he added.
'Iranians are still against the regime but, for the moment, they are focused on security,' Piron said.
While resistance is at a low ebb, Iran's leaders are seizing their moment to maintain the status quo. 'There is a certain fear for the regime – that knows it is weakened – of seeing protests emerge at some point,' Piron said. 'Their show of force should nip any protests movements in the bud.'
