Excerpts of an article published by the German newspaper, Frankfurter Rundschau on January 5, 2026
How the Iranian Regime Threatens Opposition Members in Germany
Iran’s intelligence services not only terrorize dissidents and their families in Iran, but opponents of the regime cannot feel safe even in Europe. Now the regime is under pressure more than any time before, which may make it even more dangerous.
When Samira called her parents in Iran a few months ago, she immediately knew what was going on. During the video call, her mother sat before the camera with a headscarf. “Do you have visitors?” Samira asked. Her mother shook her head vigorously. Samira knew she had to lie, someone from Iran’s domestic intelligence service was surely outside the camera’s view. “At home she only wears the headscarf when guests are there,” Samira told the Frankfurter Rundschau. She wanted to explain what the Iranian mullah regime was doing to her family.
Before the call, Samira’s parents had been picked up by Iran’s secret police and interrogated for hours. The 41-year-old had experienced this since childhood: her parents were repeatedly summoned to the domestic intelligence offices. “As a child I was always afraid they would never come back.”
“They told us you are demonstrating in Europe and chanting slogans against the mullahs,” Samira’s mother reported from the interrogation. “They said your brother should watch himself. He has just become a father. And your sister in Germany has three children. We know where she lives. We’ll eliminate her so there’s no trace to be found,” she said through tears. “They said: we warned you; we won’t let you drink a drop of water anymore!” a Persian expression that essentially means: We will make your life hell.
Samira’s heart broke. She spoke loudly so the intelligence agent in the background could hear every word: “Mom, tell them to come! I will not be intimidated. I have chosen freedom for my people! And what happens to you doesn’t matter to me! I want no more contact with you!” Then she hung up.
She hoped the Iranian intelligence would understand. Hoping they would stop torturing her family in Iran and forcing them to make her give up her political work in exile against the Iranian regime. And she hoped her family wouldn’t suffer anymore.
She knew her parents understood why she cut off contact. After all, Samira’s mother and her sister had themselves fought the mullah regime in the 1980s as sympathizers of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (MEK), which opposed the clerical government that came to power after the 1979 revolution. In 1984 both young women were arrested. Samira’s mother managed to flee; her aunt never returned. Only 40 years later did Samira find out what had happened to her.
What Samira experienced is the modus operandi of the regime in many similar cases. The mullahs detain family members parents, siblings, children, uncles, aunts in Iran to stop exiles from doing opposition work or attending demonstrations abroad, or to force their return. MEK supporters are especially at risk. The German domestic intelligence agency’s report warns that Iranian intelligence services conduct days-long interrogations to coerce people who have contacts with opposition activists into cooperating.
Trauma and intimidation beyond Iran
At the same time, relatives in Iran are threatened that something could happen to their family members in exile and these threats should be taken seriously.
A year ago in Berlin, Nemat saw a car parked outside his home for a long time. Three men were inside. He was being followed. “They wanted to talk with me about what I do,” he told the FR. Nemat is politically active, attends protests, and has given speeches. He threatened to call the police and later filed a report. “My wife is very afraid,” he said. “We fear for our eldest son in Iran.”
Nemat’s adult son has been repeatedly summoned for interrogation over the years. “We know your father works with the People’s Mojahedin. Tell him to hold back!” In this year’s five-hour interrogation they also threatened that he could lose his job and apartment. “Your parents in Germany could be harmed; we know where they live,” they told him.
Nemat is retraumatized. He himself was imprisoned by the mullahs twice in the south of Iran in the early 1980s and again in the early 1990s. He was tortured physically and psychologically. Many of his friends were sentenced to death in sham trials and executed. “Every afternoon they read out a list of names,” he said. “In the evening we counted the shots.” Each shot meant an executed friend. Nemat never knew if he would still be alive the next day or whether his family would know where he was.
Extensive threats documented in Germany
The German branch of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NWRI), a coalition dominated by MEK, reported that there are around 100 cases in Germany involving threats against “official members and functionaries of the MEK,” of which 73 are documented. The cases share similar patterns. NWRI spokesperson Javad Dabiran says the threat is increasing rapidly. He warns that regime agents and spies must be expelled, calling them a danger to Germany’s internal security and paving the way for terror.
Germany’s Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV) agrees: Iranian intelligence activities often serve to prepare state-terrorist actions like abduction or even killing of target individuals. They aggressively track Iranian government opponents living abroad and “combat them ruthlessly.” The BfV report speaks of “intimidation,” “neutralization of opponents,” and “punishment of traitors or defectors,” with MEK members currently especially in the spotlight.
According to the NWRI, a judge in a trial against 104 MEK members in Tehran has repeatedly threatened European countries: if others do not implement death sentences against “mohareb” (enemies of God and the state), then “the people” will carry them out themselves. The NWRI interprets this as an “indirect threat” that Iran could conduct “terrorist acts on European soil.”
Historical acts of state terrorism
There is precedent for Iranian state terrorism in Europe. In the 1990s, Iran’s secret service carried out multiple political assassinations. In 1992, four Kurdish–Iranian dissidents were gunned down at the “Mykonos” restaurant in Berlin German courts determined the Iranian state ordered the attack. Two further plots were foiled: one in March 2018 targeting a large MEK gathering in Tirana, Albania, and another in June 2018 against an NWRI rally near Paris. Iranian diplomat Assadollah Assadi was sentenced to 20 years in prison for attempting the bomb attack.
Since 2019, Iran’s intelligence services have increasingly carried out complex operations, including the abduction of high-ranking opposition figures to Iran. In 2023, an Iranian with a German passport was kidnapped during a trip to Dubai and ultimately sentenced to death in Iran.
Cyberattacks and other pressures
Iran also targets opposition figures digitally. Accounts on social media and email are hacked. Journalists and human-rights activists are among the victims. In November 2023, former Vice-President of the European Parliament and MEK supporter Alejo Vidal-Quadras was targeted in a violent attack shortly after Iran’s foreign ministry labeled him a “terror-supporter” on a sanctions list.
In Germany, a severe arson attack against the NWRI office in Berlin-Wilmersdorf is suspected to be a regime-linked assault. The investigation continues, though prosecutors are tight-lipped for safety reasons.
Networks, surveillance and digital intimidation
Iranian intelligence reportedly gathers information in part by recruiting exiled Iranians, possibly including agents posing as refugees in Europe. At protests, regime forces photograph participants a clear message: We are watching you. Both the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence (MOIS) and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are involved in these operations.
