Across Iran and throughout its global diaspora, members of ethnic and religious minority communities are facing a sharp rise in digital harassment, with state-backed forces using an increasingly sophisticated set of tactics designed to silence, intimidate, and isolate. This trend has accelerated amid Iran’s tightening repression since mid-2025, when the war with Israel triggered an intensified security crackdown. According to the UN fact-finding mission on Iran, more than 21,000 people have been arrested in recent months, with minorities, journalists, and activists disproportionately targeted. The online sphere has mirrored these abuses, becoming a hostile environment for those who speak out.
In the final episode of ARTICLE 19’s podcast series on Iran, journalist and producer Jo Glanville talks to two leading advocates: Simin Fahandej of the Bahá’í International Community (BIC) and Azadeh Pourzand, Co-Founder of the Siamak Pourzand Foundation. Both describe a steep rise in digitally-enabled harassment targeting minority communities, particularly after the death of Mahsa Jhina Amini in police custody and the Woman, Life, Freedom protest movement that followed. They stress that online abuse is a systematic strategy to undermine psychological safety, fracture community ties, and suppress minority rights movements.
Fahandej highlights how Bahá’ís are subject to coordinated smear operations and surveillance aimed at delegitimising the community and discouraging public dissent and advocacy against rights abuses. Pourzand notes the same patterns among ethnic minority groups and human rights defenders, many of whom now rely on digital tools for documentation and organising. Both emphasise that transnational repression is now a routine part of the Iranian government’s playbook. Harassment campaigns often follow activists across continents, reminding them that speaking out, even from exile, carries real risks.
Digital harassment now functions as a core pillar of repression. Authorities and affiliated actors deploy smear and hate speech campaigns, account hacking, impersonation, viral disinformation, coordinated and targeted harassment, device seizure, and surveillance of private communications. Recently, ARTICLE 19 identified a large-scale state-sponsored social engineering attack targeting individuals working for non-governmental and civil society organisations, international governmental entities, and others working to defend human rights. For Bahá’ís, Kurds, Baluchis, Ahwazis, and other marginalised groups, these tactics build on long histories of discrimination, exploiting social media to reinforce stigma while enabling state agencies to track and punish dissent. Crucially, the intimidation does not stop at Iran’s borders. Diaspora activists report threats against their families at home, doxxing, spyware attempts, and relentless online abuse aimed at deterring international advocacy.
Despite pervasive pressure, Iran’s civic fabric remains resilient. Minority communities continue to mobilise, document violations, and support one another through trusted networks of solidarity. The digital space, even as it becomes more dangerous, still provides avenues for connection and collective action.
Both Fahandej and Pourzand underline that the persistence of these communities is a vital counterforce to repression.
As digital harassment grows more sophisticated, protecting minority voices, both inside Iran and abroad, has never been more urgent. Their continued courage, and the global solidarity surrounding them, remains essential to defending freedom of expression in one of the world’s most challenging environments.
ARTICLE 19 supports high-risk individuals, including journalists, activists, human rights defenders, and individuals facing persistent online threats, to strengthen their safety, resilience, and ability to continue their work. This assistance includes tailored digital security guidance, capacity-building training, and hands-on support to assess and mitigate risks. The organisation also documents online abuse and targeted harassment to inform advocacy efforts and push for greater accountability from governments and other actors. In addition, ARTICLE 19’s Rapid Response team works directly with social media platform partners to escalate cases of harassment, hate speech, impersonation, and other harmful content, helping ensure timely moderation and removal to protect those most at risk.
This podcast was produced by Jo Glanville, a journalist and audio producer. She regularly produces and presents documentaries for the BBC. Her journalism has appeared in the Guardian, New York Times, Financial Times and London Review of Books, among other publications. She was an award-winning editor of Index on Censorship and a former director of English PEN. She is editor of Looking for an Enemy: eight essays on antisemitism (Short Books/WW Norton) and Qissat: short stories by Palestinian women (Telegram/Saqi).
This podcast is part of Boundaries of Expression, a series of interventions from ARTICLE 19. Boundaries of Expression is designed as a space for those working on freedom of expression to take a look at some of the most controversial and divisive issues of our time.
Listen to the other podcasts in the series: