Iran’s Parliament Votes 2-to-5-Year Prison Terms for Running Foreign-Linked Classes as a Tehran Art School Is Seized

Economic Warfare & Trade Policy › Sanctions

Iran’s parliament on Sunday, November 1, approved provisions of a counter-infiltration bill that would send people to prison for running classes, workshops or conferences linked to a “foreign agent” without a state permit. On the same weekend, authorities froze the accounts of a private Tehran art and design school and began confiscating the property of its founder, who has publicly backed the country’s protesters. Together, the two moves show how far the state’s security apparatus now reaches into classrooms, studios and private businesses, a recurring theme in our coverage of Iranian domestic affairs.

What lawmakers passed

Meeting online with 199 members present, the chamber adopted Articles 27, 28 and 29 of the “Bill to Counter the Infiltration of Intelligence Services and Foreign Governments or Entities,” according to the Iranian outlet Aria News Agency (single-source on the attendance figure). The text of Article 28, published by Etemad Online citing the semi-official ISNA agency !Unverified claim, ISNA (Iranian state media), bans holding, organizing or promoting any in-person or online course, class, workshop or educational conference, inside Iran or abroad, that operates under the “support, supervision, direction or training” of a foreign agent without a permit from the bill’s online registration system.

Organizers face “fifth-degree” imprisonment. Officials who authorize such events without clearance from that system face “sixth-degree” imprisonment and a permanent ban from government service. Under Article 19 of Iran’s Islamic Penal Code, in a translation by the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, fifth-degree prison terms run from two to five years and sixth-degree terms from six months to two years. A note to the article adds that accepting money from a foreign agent for such a course leads to seizure of the funds and raises the organizer’s sentence by one degree. Participants can be fined or jailed.

Article 29 makes it a crime to carry out obligations under international agreements that parliament has not ratified. The penalties are prison, a fine and a lifetime ban from state employment. Aria reported that Article 27 sets punishments for producing “anti-Iranian-Islamic” works, and that lawmakers amended Article 30 so courts can convict and dissolve a company or institution when an offense is committed for its benefit (single-source, Aria).

The Guards’ hand on the rulebook

The bill reaches well beyond foreign spies. An earlier section approved in August defines a “foreign agent” as any non-Iranian government, institution or organization, along with any person or entity under its direct or indirect “support, employment, direction, supervision or guidance,” whether based in Iran or abroad, Euronews Persian reported. According to the same analysis, Article 33 assigns the implementing rules on registration, permits and inspections to the Intelligence Ministry and the Intelligence Organization of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), with final approval by the Supreme National Security Council. Radio Farda (RFE/RL) reported in August that the bill names those two agencies as the investigators of alleged violations.

In practice, the IRGC’s intelligence arm would help decide which teachers, artists and researchers need its permission to work with anyone abroad. That arm is already active: the Kurdish rights group Hengaw said IRGC intelligence agents detained three Kurdish men in Oshnavieh without warrants, and that the same agency arrested a Baha’i man in March who was later subjected to mock executions and has now been sentenced by a court in Kerman (both single-source, Hengaw, not independently verified). The bill also sits alongside the 2025 espionage law that Tehran this weekend extended to Britain’s MI6.

The government of President Masoud Pezeshkian formally opposed the bill in August. Majid Ansari, the president’s deputy for legal affairs, told IRNA that it would restrict scientific development, speed up the emigration of skilled Iranians and conflict with constitutional protections of citizens’ rights, Euronews Persian reported. Supporters reject that view. Hassan Ghashghavi, spokesman for parliament’s national security committee, argued that Iran had laws on espionage but a legal “vacuum” on infiltration. The bill still needs approval from the Guardian Council before it can become law.

A school with 70,000 alumni, frozen

The art school case came first. On October 30, Tehran’s Inverse School said its website had been blocked, its bank accounts and payment gateways frozen and its property seized, and that confiscation proceedings had begun, IranWire reported. The notice did not identify which state bodies had acted, and the formal charges remain unconfirmed.

On Sunday, the IRGC-affiliated Fars News Agency said the property of the school’s owner, Alireza Ordoubadi, had been seized and was being confiscated “due to action against national security” !Unverified claim, Fars (IRGC-affiliated). Iran International reported that Fars accused him of insulting Shiite Muslims and spreading anti-Islamic Republic propaganda on his personal social media accounts. Iran International also noted that Fars published no supporting document and did not say which authority issued the order. The accusations have not been independently verified.

Ordoubadi, who founded the school in 2008, said more than 70,000 people have studied there and that it had never published “even a single political post.” “No one’s right to work, learn, and live should depend on remaining silent,” he wrote. “Their issue is with me, but they are extracting the cost from the school and its people.” He said the school had lost students on Ukraine International Airlines Flight PS752 and two more in this year’s protests. “Seizure is your decision, and continuing is ours,” he wrote, according to Iran International.

A pattern of confiscation

The Inverse case follows a string of property seizures aimed at critics. Last week an Iranian court sentenced the Palme d’Or–winning director Jafar Panahi in absentia to five years and one month in prison and ordered the seizure of all his assets, The Guardian reported, citing his lawyer. Moein Khazaeli, a lawyer with the legal aid group Dadban, told the paper that the confiscation could violate Iran’s constitution unless authorities show a legal link between the property and an alleged offense.

In Qom, café owner Sadegh Saedinia received a sentence of 12 years, six months and one day, plus confiscation of all his property, which the Supreme Court upheld, HRANA reported. The charges against him included closing his cafés and encouraging his employees to join the January protests. Last week, authorities in several provinces also sealed businesses over Halloween events.

The New York–based Center for Human Rights in Iran has warned that the authorities are “pulling peaceful voices into the same coercive security and judicial apparatus used to suppress dissent across Iran,” The Guardian reported.

What comes next

Lawmakers are scheduled to continue debating the bill on Tuesday, November 3, according to Aria. Any final text must then clear the Guardian Council. For the rest of the day’s developments, including the Strait of Hormuz talks and October’s execution count, see today’s Iran daily briefing; the military picture is tracked on our Iran war tracker.

Sources

Sourcing note: No Reuters, AP or AFP report on Sunday’s vote was found. The vote and article texts rest on Iranian domestic media (ISNA via Etemad Online, and Aria), used here as the official record. The charges against Ordoubadi come only from IRGC-affiliated Fars and are unverified. Article 33 is described from Euronews Persian’s reading of the August text and may have changed.

• Etemad Online, citing ISNA (semi-official; state media), Text of Articles 28 and 29 as approved (Persian), Nov. 1, 2026
• Aria News Agency (single-source on Articles 27 and 30, attendance and next session), Summary of the Nov. 1 session (Persian), Nov. 1, 2026
• Iran Human Rights Documentation Center, Islamic Penal Code, Article 19 (translation),
• Euronews Persian, Explainer on the counter-infiltration bill (Persian), Aug. 25, 2026
• RFE/RL, Iran Parliament Advances Bill Criminalizing Contact With Foreign Media and Institutions, Aug. 17, 2026
• IranWire, Authorities Seize Assets and Freeze Accounts of Tehran’s Inverse Art School, Oct. 30, 2026
• Iran International, Iran seizes art school assets over founder’s alleged insult to Shiites, Nov. 1, 2026
• The Guardian, Iranian film-maker Jafar Panahi given new prison sentence, Oct. 28, 2026
• HRANA, Sadegh Saedinia Sentenced to More Than 12 Years in Prison and Property Confiscation, Sept. 3, 2026

Additional sources

• Fars News Agency (IRGC-affiliated state media; the authorities’ account), Post on the seizure of Ordoubadi’s property (Persian), Nov. 1, 2026
• Iran International (Persian), Report noting Fars published no supporting document, Oct. 31, 2026
• Hengaw (single-source), IRGC Intelligence arrests of three Kurdish men in Oshnavieh, Nov. 1, 2026
• Hengaw (single-source), Baha’i cousins Payvand and Borna Naeimi sentenced in Kerman, Nov. 2, 2026