On Sunday, 25 October 2026, the Intelligence Organisation of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced the arrest of a number of residents of Hormozgan province. They are accused of sending photos and videos to free Persian-language media outside the country. At the same time, the Islamic Republic's state broadcaster aired a video of these detainees' confessions; confessions obtained in custody, without a lawyer present, following the familiar pattern of forced confessions.
State-affiliated media called these citizens «مزدوران مجازی» ("virtual mercenaries") and claimed that during the recent war they had filmed and photographed the sites of missile strikes and the positions of military forces and sent the material to Iran International. The IRGC has not announced the detainees' names, the time of their arrest, where they are being held or their formal charges. No independent source has so far confirmed the IRGC's claims.
Criminalising contact with free media
These arrests continue a wave that the Islamic Republic has launched since the start of the war against citizens who publish images of the attacks, the damage and the presence of military forces in cities. The regime is trying, by intimidating citizens, to silence any independent account of what is happening in Iran's cities and leave only the official narrative standing.
The same Sunday, the Islamic Republic's parliament also made the punishment for any crime linked to a "foreign agent" one degree harsher; a label the regime has repeatedly used for free Persian-language media and those who speak to them. Hormozgan province, with Bandar Abbas and the ports along the Strait of Hormuz, has been one of the main hotspots of the fighting in recent months, and residents of Bandar Lengeh and Bandar Kong have repeatedly reported the sound of explosions and fighter jets flying overhead.
The IRGC arrests citizens who send images of the war to free media and airs their confessions on state television.
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