Legal experts say the law could send citizens to the gallows for offenses as minor as owning satellite internet equipment or sharing images on social media.
President Masoud Pezeshkian on Thursday signed the “Law on Intensifying Punishment for Espionage and Cooperation with the Zionist Regime and Hostile Countries,” giving it immediate effect.
The timing of the law's passage has raised alarms among international observers. Just 16 days before Pezeshkian's signature, United Nations human rights experts announced that the Iranian government executed more than 1,000 people in Iran during the first nine months of 2025 alone.
“The sheer scale of executions in Iran is staggering and represents a grave violation of the right to life,” the experts said. “With an average of more than nine hangings per day in recent weeks, Iran appears to be conducting executions at an industrial scale that defies all accepted standards of human rights protection.”
Rather than heeding the international community's concerns, Iran's parliament responded by passing legislation that legal experts say violates the country's constitution, Islamic law, and international human rights treaties to which Iran is a signatory.
The legislation emerged in the wake of what legal experts describe as a catastrophic intelligence breakdown during the 12-day war.
Rather than hold high-ranking officials accountable for security failures, the government swiftly created a legal framework for prosecuting ordinary citizens.
"Adding criminal charges subject to the death penalty is an explosion in legislation and abuse of charges such as 'corruption on Earth,' which society cannot tolerate or has the capacity for," said Hossein Raisi, a human rights law professor at Carleton University.
He added, "Especially since such charges are to be tried in the Revolutionary Court, a court that does not observe any principles of fair trial."
Ebrahim Azizi, chairman of the National Security and Foreign Policy Commission of Iran's parliament, framed the legislation differently, saying it was necessary "after the 12-day war of the Zionist regime and the US, with the cooperation of some deceived internal elements who harmed public security.”
Critics retort that the government has executed only young people with no public profiles or platforms, on the new espionage charges, and that no senior officials have been held accountable for the intelligence failures that the law ostensibly addresses.
Article 3 of the new law creates an expansive list of capital offenses that legal experts say bears little resemblance to traditional espionage laws.
The death penalty now applies to anyone involved in manufacturing, assembling, supplying, transferring, carrying, storing, or importing various items or conducting activities that could be construed as related to espionage or related actions.
Weapons-related offenses are met with capital punishment, under the new law, including involvement with chemical, biological or nuclear arms. But the law extends far beyond conventional military hardware. Possessing or distributing small drones or quadcopters with potential military, espionage, or disruptive applications also now carries a death sentence.
The law targets explicitly "micro-aircraft, including small drones and quadcopters", and related components.
Cyber activities constitute another category of capital crimes. Any cyber warfare, cyber attacks or disruption of communication networks and information systems can result in execution. Even sabotage of private facilities falls under this provision.
The law targets cryptocurrency and foreign financial transactions, making it a capital offense to receive "money or property such as real estate, vehicles, gold, currency, and any type of encrypted assets from spies or affiliates of intelligence services" if the recipient knows of the affiliation and the funds lead to activities defined elsewhere in the legislation.
Perhaps most controversially, the law makes distribution of satellite internet equipment, specifically naming Starlink, punishable by death if done "with the intent to oppose the system [i.e. the government] or espionage" and if the perpetrator is deemed an "enemy force."
Beyond capital offenses, the law creates a labyrinth of prison-eligible crimes that encompass activities many Iranians engage in routinely.
Using, carrying, storing, buying, or selling unlicensed satellite internet equipment like Starlink for personal use is now prohibited, carrying six months to two years in prison as punishment.
The law applies the same penalties to sharing content with "opposition" networks or pages.
Even broader language criminalizes "any action or cooperation in carrying out political, cultural, media, and propaganda activities" or creating content "that typically causes public terror or is against national security."
These offenses carry prison terms ranging from 10 to 15 years and permanent bans from government employment.
The law also targets street protests, subjecting participation in "illegal marches and gatherings" to imprisonment.
For satellite internet equipment distribution that does not rise to capital punishment levels, sentences range from fourth to fifth-degree imprisonment, depending on intent and whether the person is classified as an enemy force.
Fifty-seven jurists signed a statement condemning the law as contrary to "the principle of legality of crime and punishment," "the principle of proportionality between crime and punishment" and "the principle of equality of punishments."
Raisi, also a lawyer, explained that the principle of legality in criminal law means "matters that cannot have a criminal aspect should not be criminalized."
"The legislator has come and criminalized behavior that was not criminal in the past, while the emotional behavior of parliament has caused the principle of equality of punishments to be completely forgotten," Raisi said. "It's as if they legislated in war conditions without predicting how government agents who commit treason will be punished."
He added: "Clear extremism has happened in legislation, otherwise how is it possible that sending images to media or social networks would carry two to give years imprisonment? Many of the matters criminalized in this law cannot be considered criminal activity."
Iran's Criminal Procedure Code, in Articles 2 through 6, establishes principles for fair and equitable trials, including the right to a lawyer of one's choosing, the right to appeal, judicial impartiality and independence, and the right to be informed of charges.
Article 7 of the new espionage law expedites all cases through special branches of Revolutionary Courts, bypassing normal judicial procedures.
Human rights organizations have long criticized Iran's Revolutionary Courts for lacking due process, judicial independence, and fair trial guarantees.
Legal experts say the courts are extensions of security and intelligence agencies rather than independent judicial bodies.
"There is no guarantee that the Revolutionary Court will observe the principles of fair trial," Raisi said. "Referring the crimes subject to this law to the Revolutionary Court is insistence on undermining public trust."
He argued the law serves political rather than security purposes.
"This law was not passed to restore public trust and protect people's rights, but rather to compensate for the government's intelligence weakness and protect the government," Raisi said.
Article 8 adds four clauses creating special investigative provisions that legal scholars say further contradict the Criminal Procedure Code and international fair trial standards.
Legal experts say Article 9 of the law is a significant breach of legal principles, as it applies retroactively and allows prosecutions for actions committed before Iran's parliament enacted the new law.
"The legislator has also explicitly violated this principle in Article 9 and has made the law applicable to the past and wants to give criminal charges to behaviors that happened in the past," Raisi said. "This is a new innovation in legislation."
Note 2 of Article 1 designates both the United States government and "the Zionist regime," or Israel, as hostile states under the law. Legal experts say this formal designation has implications far beyond criminal prosecutions.
The language effectively nullifies the Treaty of Amity and Economic Relations and Consular Rights between Iran and the United States, signed by both countries in 1955. Iran successfully invoked this treaty at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.
On March 30, 2023, after seven years of proceedings, the court ruled in Iran's favor, finding that the United States had violated several treaty obligations.
The court determined Tehran was entitled to compensation for the $2 billion in Central Bank assets confiscated by U.S. authorities. Iran had filed the complaint on June 14, 2016.
"This law officially means the cancellation and elimination of the treaty signed between Iran and the United States," Raisi said.
He argued that designating countries as hostile in permanent legislation creates diplomatic rigidity that undermines national interests.
"The legislator cannot include the name of a country as a hostile country in a permanent law, because the relations between countries can change at any moment," Raisi said.
Legal experts say the espionage law directly conflicts with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Iran is a party. Raisi identified contradictions with Articles 6, 7, and 14 of the covenant.
Article 6 protects the right to life and strictly limits the application of the death penalty. Article 7 prohibits torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Article 14 guarantees fair trial rights.
Source: Iran Wire, Pezhman Tahavori, October 17, 2025
"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
but by the punishments that the good have inflicted."
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