(LONDON) — Even as a fragile two-week ceasefire between Iran and the U.S. holds – sparing about 90 million Iranians from the immediate threat of bombardment – many Iranians at home and abroad say they still face an intensifying wave of threats from the Islamic Republic regime as it continues cracking down on dissent.
The leaders of the Iranian regime have escalated measures to silence any kind of protests and criticisms against their policies both inside the country and across its diaspora, Iranians and observers inside the country and abroad told ABC News.
Shiva, a London-based Iranian journalist, says she has received direct threats from Iranian security forces, been labelled a “traitor” and had her assets in Iran confiscated. Shiva and other Iranians who spoke with ABC News in recent days asked not to be identified by their real names because of security concerns.
She is one of more than 400 Iranian journalists and artists abroad whose assets in Iran have been seized by the Islamic Republic for allegedly supporting what authorities describe as “hostile foreign actors,” according to a judiciary statement issued on April 11.
Since the beginning of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran, the Islamic Republic judicial authorities have repeatedly said that they would adopt extreme measures against those who “collaborate with the enemy” – a broad accusation that they usually use against protesters.
The measures range from harsh sentences by the judiciary including death sentence and lengthy prison terms on protesters at home, to seizing local assets belonging to dissidents abroad.
Despite the threats against her, Shiva says she is most concerned about her family who live in Iran and could face harassment by authorities because of her reporting, she told ABC News on Wednesday.
Having covered the situation of human rights violations in Iran, she added that she is “extremely worried” about the situation of the imprisoned protesters in the country.
“What worries me is my family, and the people inside Iran,” Shiva said, “the voices of people inside the country are not being heard – those who are at risk of execution, those who are being silenced.”
A judicial authority told the state media on Tuesday that such moves are aligned with the new legislation of the country made to intensify penalties for espionage and cooperation with countries that are deemed as “hostile” to Iran including Israel and the United States.
Arrests, prison situation and executions
In the months before the war with the U.S. and Israel began in late February, the Iranian regime committed massacres to suppress a series of nationwide protests in the country while imposing an internet blackout to prevent voices of protesters and families of the victims from being heard by the world, and to disrupt their communication with one another, according to the U.S. and international observers.
According to the U.S.-based Human Rights News Agency (HRANA), over 7,000 people – including at least 6,488 protesters – were killed in the protests which had been ignited over the severe economic hardships with dramatic fall of the country’s currency in the last days of December 2025. ABC News could not independently verify those figures.
Security forces arrested more than 50,000 people across the country, HRANA reported. Two Iranian lawyers and several human rights activists told ABC News at the time that those behind the bars did not have access to basic rights including having access to a lawyer or a fair transparent trial.
Rule of fear
The situation got even worse for dissidents in Iran after the U.S. and Israel started the war on the country, Iranians told ABC News, following President Donald Trump’s Feb. 28 address to Iranians, in which he said that they can “take over” their government once the U.S. and Israel are finished.
“The hour of your freedom is at hand. Stay sheltered. Don’t leave your home. It’s very dangerous outside. Bombs will be dropping everywhere. When we are finished, take over your government. It will be yours to take,” Trump said in that address as the war began.
Iran’s police chief, Gen. Ahmad-Reza Radan warned Iranians in a March 11 interview on state TV that they would be shot dead if they came to streets to protest. “If people take to the streets to protest, we will do what we did to the enemy. Our hand is on the trigger,” Radan said.
During the war, main squares and streets of cities were again taken over by the police, armed forces and plain clothes security agents of the regime as several Iranians from Tehran, Isfahan, Rasht and other cities of the country told ABC News. The forces would not only control the streets on checkpoints, but would use loudspeakers to play religious and revolutionary propaganda songs.
“At night, I see the regime forces marching on the streets of my neighborhood,” Saghar, a resident of west Tehran, told ABC News after the war began.
“When I hear their voices, I feel like I want to scream,” she said. “I see them from the window and I get so angry that I like to throw everything I can at them. Why don’t I have a share of the streets of my city? Everywhere is under their control.”
Behind bars in an unknown location
The anger is even more fierce for many families of victims and prisoners of the protests.
Shailin Asadollahi, sister of an Iranian prisoner, told ABC News during the war that her family had no information at the time about the whereabouts of her brother Ali Asadollahi, a dissident poet, who was jailed by the regime. Asadollahi and many other prisoners had been transferred to locations unknown to their families after the war began, she said, creating a dire fear among families about their loved ones’ safety and wellbeing.
“I am so distressed and worried. I feel I struggle to even breathe when I think about where my brother is when bombs constantly fall over the city,” she told ABC News. “But Ali told us upon his arrest that no matter what happens to him we need to be the voice for all prisoners, not just him.”
“It is not just about us knowing where they are,” Shailin said. “Even a few prisoners who have called their families have said that they hear the bombs but don’t know where they are,” she added.
Following the destruction of some of the main judicial facilities of the country in the U.S.-Israeli attacks and closure of some state organizations, an Iranian lawyer in the country told ABC News that it had become almost impossible to get any update from the status of prisoners.
“Neither families nor us as lawyers know who to call and where to follow up the situation of the prisoners as no one from the judiciary is responsive,” the lawyer told ABC News. She asked not to be named over security concerns.
New arrests
Iranian authorities also appeared to accelerated arrests during the war and the current ceasefire on a range of charges, including espionage and actions against national security. The intelligence ministry and the IRGC intelligence forces publish news of recent arrests in different cities almost every day.
In one of the latest cases, 22 people were arrested in the southwestern province of Khuzestan, the semi-official Tasnim News agency reported, quoting the police.
Collaboration with the “enemy media” is one of the common charges for those who are arrested. The Iranian police chief said in March that 500 people were arrested for sending information to “the enemy and anti-Iranian media.” Hundreds more have been arrested since then according to the daily reports from Iranian authorities.
Record number of executions, observers say
HRANA said on April 2 that the implementation of death sentences in Iran has entered “a new and deeply alarming phase.” During the war, at least 10 political prisoners have been executed, and there is “a noticeable acceleration in executions,” HRANA reported.
Amirhossein Hatami, an 18-year-old protester, was one of those 10 protesters. He was executed on April 2, on charges related to the nationwide protests in the country in January, according to Mizan News Agency, the official news outlet of the country’s judiciary. The report added that Hatami was allegedly involved in burning a government property.
Amnesty International, writing on social media, described Hatami’s trial as “grossly unfair.”
Two other protesters, Mohammadamin Biglari and Shahin Vahedparast, who had been arrested for the same case were later executed three days later, Mizan reported.
A source close to one of the four prisoners’ families told ABC News that that these protesters along with two others arrested on this case had been moved from the prison’s general ward and their lives are under imminent threat of execution.
The recent execution of protesters comes despite Trump’s warnings to Iranian authorities before the war that continuing to execute protesters could trigger a strong response.
“The war was never about Iranian protesters and Iranian people’s rights,” Shadi, an Iranian woman from Rasht posted on her Instagram story in April along with the news of the recent executions.
“If Trump cared about us and our lives, there would be one point about human rights situation in Iran in their 15-point proposal,” she wrote. “But there is no mention of Iranian people in there. It is all about the oil and Iran’s proxies aboard and the Strait of Hormuz.”
At least 1,639 people were executed by the Iranian regime in 2025, which was 68% more than the year before and highest number recorded since 1989, according to a joint report by Norway-based Iran Human Rights (IHR) and Paris-based Together Against the Death Penalty (EPCM), on April 13.
Stifling journalism and activism
While Iranian journalists abroad like Shiva who have tried to do their jobs are now facing growing threats and potential punishment from the regime, journalists and activists inside the country face even harsher restrictions. Many are unable to speak openly about people’s suffering from the scars of war and state repression.
“Tyranny, war, sanctions, executions and imprisonment, all are tools for the destruction of Iran and the annihilation of its people’s lives,” Zia Nabavi, a dissident activist in Iran, wrote on his Instagram story in March.
Nabavi has spent more than a decade in prison for his activism and is one of many dissidents who believe the war will not bring about positive outcomes for Iranians.
Some believe that war against the Islamic Republic could lead to regime change. But Nabavi and others argue it would instead erode the fragile space needed to pursue social freedoms and equal rights, reducing public demands to survival amid the devastation caused by conflict.
Nabavi believes that those who impose executions, sanctions and wars on Iranians are different, but “the arrival of one does not mean the departure of another,” as they are all “life-killing,” he wrote.
“They can walk hand-in-hand to escort us toward the darkest possible fate,” Nabavi added in his Instagram story.
Despite the pressures – from war, censorship and ongoing security threats – journalists like Shiva say they will continue their work, documenting events and sharing stories about Iran.
“The Islamic Republic is trying to extend its censorship and intimidation beyond its borders. But it cannot silence me here,” Shiva said.
“They have already taken away my ability to return home, but they cannot take away my voice,” she said.
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