Dissidents and journalists based abroad faced intensified threats, and their families in Iran were interrogated and/or arbitrarily detained in reprisal for their work.2 In July, US prosecution authorities charged four Iranian agents for conspiring to abduct Iranian-US journalist Masih Alinejad from US soil. In August, intelligence officials interrogated the relatives of exiled Kurdish human rights defender Arsalan Yarahmadi and threatened him with death. Iranian-Swedish dissident Habib Chaab and Iranian-German dissident Jamshid Sharmahd, who had previously been abducted abroad and returned to Iran, remained at risk of the death penalty.
