‘We’ll Kidnap Your Daughter’: Iran’s New Intimidation Playbook

iranwire – The phone call came with an ultimatum: report to the Intelligence Ministry, or agents would kidnap your 9-year-old daughter from school.

The threat, documented in a video shared by former political prisoner Hossein Shirzad, reflects what human rights observers describe as an escalating pattern of extrajudicial intimidation tactics used by Iranian security forces to coerce citizens into appearing for interrogation without legal warrants.

Shirzad posted the video on X, calling it “the new method of telephone summons” when targets ignore calls from intelligence agents.

“You won’t find this degree of evil from a regime, even in the darkest pages of history,” he wrote.

The post prompted dozens of similar accounts from Iranians detailing their own experiences with irregular summons.

One user recounted how agents called workplace managers when a target didn’t respond. Another described a 2009 incident in which agents told a mother that if her protesting son appeared at demonstrations again, “you’ll have to find his corpse under a bridge.”

These tactics, legal experts and activists say, violate Iranian law as well as international human rights standards. But they have become increasingly common as security forces struggle to manage widespread dissent while circumventing judicial oversight.

IranWire has documented several cases of such irregular summons over the past two years, particularly after the nationwide Woman, Life, Freedom protests that erupted in 2022 following the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody, and again after the 12-day war in June.

The tactics range from psychological pressure to outright deception.

In one case, security agents pursued 38-year-old Pejman Yousefi – who posted anti-war content on social media – through multiple phone calls before contacting one of his friends. 

Through that intermediary, they lured Yousefi from his fiancée’s father’s house and arrested him. He now faces an eight-year prison sentence.

In December 2023, agents in Yazd attacked a housewarming party for a young Baha’i couple with such violence that an ambulance was required. 

Days later, authorities revealed the raid’s purpose: to force the bride, Samiyeh Gholinezhad, to report for interrogation. Instead of issuing a formal summons, agents instructed her father-in-law to relay the message.

The Azerbaijan Human Rights Association reported a similar pattern in July 2023 involving Azeri activists in northwestern Ardabil.

After widespread telephone summons went unanswered, agents called the elderly and often ill parents of activists Towhid Amiramini, Yousef Kari, Farshid Pichganloo, and Mehrdad Sheikhi, warning that their children would face “harsh treatment” and that authorities would accept no responsibility for what followed.

A former student activist, who spoke to IranWire on condition of anonymity for security reasons, said such family-destroying tactics have been used for years against lesser-known protesters and activists.

In the 2000s, when she was 22, Intelligence Ministry agents bypassed contacting her directly and instead called her “highly traditional” father.

“Believe me, they deliberately called ten days in advance and summoned me,” she told IranWire. “Usually they summon five days before, but for me they called my father ten days earlier and said they had indecent photos of me with male classmates.”

Agents falsely claimed she had been suspended from the university and was visiting men’s homes instead of attending classes. In reality, she had been going to work.

“Those few days at home were like hell for me,” the activist said. “They did this to pressure me and force me to tell them whatever they wanted. They’ve done a lot of this.”

Another protester, who participated in demonstrations against the disputed 2009 presidential election, described how agents tracked protesters through mobile phone GPS technology.

“They tracked my mobile phone at the gathering,” the protester told IranWire.

The phone was prepaid and registered under someone else’s name, so agents initially didn’t know the owner’s identity. But because the protester attended demonstrations with friends, agents called one friend for a summons and instructed that person to tell “the owner of this number to come too.”

When the protester did not respond, agents escalated by calling the protester’s mother, whose phone was also registered under another person’s name.

“They told my mother they knew all her details. They said if she didn’t come, they would arrest all of us,” the protester said.

This account highlights the technology the Islamic Republic has used for years: tracking protesters through mobile phone GPS to identify attendees at demonstrations.

Digital security activists now advise protesters to leave their phones at home or turn them off entirely, as airplane mode may not prevent all tracking.

The infiltration of security forces into educational institutions is another dimension of irregular summons, particularly during the Woman, Life, Freedom protests, when students sustained demonstrations for months.

Motahereh Goonei, a well-known student activist and former political prisoner, told IranWire that despite having a case open with judicial authorities, the Ministry of Intelligence influenced her university.

“One day I would take an exam, one day they wouldn’t let me,” Goonei said, describing how the Intelligence Ministry’s influence affected her academic record. “Several course units I wasn’t allowed to take exams for received zero marks.”

On days she went to campus for exams, her interrogator would summon her for questioning at the university itself.

“The interrogator who had questioned me in [Ward] 209 called me. The place wasn’t strange – so many security forces had come into the university that they would interrogate inside the campus,” she said.

She described how her interrogator, identified as Moghaddasi and listed as responsible for Ministry of Health personnel affairs, told her to “put aside political work and live your life.”

Goonei, who was married at the time, later discovered that the interrogator had developed a close relationship with her ex-husband.

A civil activist in Iran said irregular summons often serve case-building purposes when authorities lack solid evidence.

“There have been cases where they wanted to lure someone to a place and arrest them, especially in small towns where everyone knows each other,” the activist said. “For example, they called pretending to be from an office and said the person needed to come sign something, and on the way, they abducted them in a quiet place.”

The activist added that these tactics operate entirely outside legal boundaries.

“None of the tricks they use are legal, but they don’t consider themselves bound by law either. They consider themselves in charge of everything in the country.”

When authorities lack coherent or reliable information about a target, they use summons and interrogation to fill in the gaps.

“In fact, by summoning and interrogating you, they want to complete their information – information that will be used against you or your friends,” the activist said. “Therefore, the emphasis is always that if you are summoned in informal ways, don’t go.”

Mohsen Borhani, a legal scholar and university professor, addressed the issue in a June 2023 article published on the legal website Vokalapress.

He identified two types of summons: legitimate summons issued by judicial authority after a case is opened, and illegal summons by a security agency for case-building purposes.

“Only the judicial authority has the right to summon,” Borhani wrote, adding that legitimate summons typically come through the judiciary system or via official documents.

If police or security agencies summon someone without judicial referral, the summons has no legal standing and citizens are under no obligation to comply, Borhani explained.

“Basically, going and complying with this request is an own goal – by doing so, you help them build a bigger case.”

Legal experts say that security agencies require a judicial process to obtain legitimate summons or arrest warrants, which can take time, especially if investigators resist security pressure.

The civil activist who spoke with IranWire warned that responding to irregular summons carries serious risks, including the possibility of death in custody.

Legal expert Musa Barzin said irregular summons have existed for years but have become far more common recently as security forces handle high volumes of cases amid widespread public dissatisfaction.

“Because the workload of security forces is high, and those summoned are countless, and because they lack evidence in many cases, it’s difficult for them to get a court summons and open a case for every instance,” Barzin said.