The Hana Human Rights Organization has issued a stark warning regarding the Islamic Republic of Iran’s exploitation of its European embassies and consulates to surveil, identify, and conduct transnational repression against political dissidents, journalists, human rights defenders, and Iranian asylum seekers.
Emerging patterns and reports indicate that elements within Iran’s diplomatic and consular missions are operating far beyond their legitimate mandates. In coordination with Iran’s security and judicial apparatus, these missions are actively gathering intelligence on political activists, tracking their residences, assets, and family ties. This surveillance is directly utilized to fabricate security cases and facilitate the seizure or confiscation of dissidents’ properties back home.
Under Article 3 of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, diplomatic missions are strictly limited to gathering information through lawful means. Furthermore, Article 41 mandates that diplomatic agents respect the laws of the host state and refrain from interfering in its internal affairs. Consequently, weaponizing diplomatic cover for political espionage, transferring personal data to security agencies, identifying dissidents, and facilitating judicial or security actions against them falls entirely outside the scope of legitimate diplomacy. Such actions constitute a flagrant abuse of diplomatic immunity, a breach of the principle of good faith, and direct interference in the internal affairs of European states.
These activities also severely undermine the obligations of European governments to protect the rights to privacy, freedom of expression, personal security, asylum, and data protection. Surveilling and targeting Iranian activists on European soil particularly when it leads to threats against their families, the fabrication of security charges, or asset confiscation in Iran is a core component of the Islamic Republic’s broader strategy of transnational repression.
Hana emphasizes that diplomatic immunity is not an absolute privilege and cannot serve as a shield for espionage, intelligence gathering, or the political persecution of dissidents. European governments possess both the right and, in certain cases, the obligation to counter the abuse of diplomatic status.
Countermeasures must include summoning ambassadors, declaring individuals “persona non grata”, expelling involved agents, restricting diplomatic movements, tightening security oversight, limiting non-essential diplomatic privileges, and imposing targeted individual sanctions under the European Union’s human rights frameworks.
The Hana Human Rights Organization strongly urges European governments, EU institutions, and the security and judicial authorities of member states to subject the operations of Iranian embassies and consulates to intense scrutiny. Any exploitation of diplomatic cover to monitor, threaten, gather intelligence, fabricate legal cases, or facilitate the transnational repression of Iranian dissidents must be met with decisive legal, security, and diplomatic restrictions.