Iran bill: up to 30 years for foreign-directed policy proposals

Compliance teams and counsel advising clients with any Iranian nexus should track a fast-moving Iranian bill that converts routine media contact into criminal exposure. The draft — approved in general principles by the Majlis — would impose six-month to two-year prison terms for interviews with US or Israeli outlets, a notification regime for all other foreign press, and up to 30 years for policy proposals attributed to foreign intelligence. For multinationals, law firms, and researchers, the bill's breadth turns ordinary cross-border communications into a sanctions- and enforcement-risk event before any final text is settled.

Iran's parliament (Majlis) has approved the general principles of a sweeping counterintelligence bill that would criminalize interviews and other communications with media deemed hostile to the Islamic Republic, explicitly including US and Israeli outlets and any media financed by either country. As reported on August 17, 2026, the draft imposes prison terms of six months to two years for unauthorized interactions with such outlets, while even contact with other foreign media would require prior notification to the intelligence ministry. The approval is at the level of general principles only: Osman Salari, a member of parliament's judicial and legal commission, told the judiciary-affiliated Mizan news agency that the individual provisions have yet to be debated and that reports on the bill's details should not yet be considered final.

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Compliance teams and counsel advising clients with any Iranian nexus should track a fast-moving Iranian bill that converts routine media contact into criminal exposure.

The bill's reach extends well beyond journalism. It would harden penalties for economic crimes committed under the direction or supervision of foreigners, ban providing information to foreigners without intelligence ministry approval, and restrict scientific cooperation with foreign institutions to an approved list. Most striking, it would punish policy or legislative proposals made under the direction of foreign intelligence services if they harm Iran's security or independence with prison terms of up to 30 years, routing cases through Iran's Revolutionary Courts — a clear signal that the measure is framed as a national-security instrument rather than an ordinary criminal statute. Contact with foreign embassies, offices of foreign organizations, or other non-Iranian institutions without written permission from the foreign ministry would carry a fine and deprivation of certain social rights.

The bill is the latest iteration of a long-standing pattern. A law passed in 2025 following the 12-day war with Israel imposed tougher penalties for alleged cooperation with hostile states. This new measure extends that logic from espionage-adjacent conduct into the everyday spheres of journalism, academia, science, and even legislative work. The procedural path mirrors Iran's legislative framework: after article-by-article debate in parliament, the final text must be reviewed by the Guardian Council, the clerical vetting body that checks legislation for conformity with the constitution and Islamic principles, before it can become law.

For the legal and RegTech community, the draft carries layered implications. First, extraterritorial and compliance risk: any organization with Iranian employees, contractors, counterparties, or research partners now faces a scenario in which routine media engagement — an interview, a podcast appearance, a bylined quote — could expose an individual to criminal liability inside Iran. Compliance teams will need to map the bill's notification and permission requirements onto existing sanctions, export-control, and anti-corruption due-diligence workflows. Second, the breadth and vagueness of key terms — "hostile," "under the direction or supervision of foreigners," "harm to security or independence" — create interpretive risk that will likely be resolved through Revolutionary Court practice rather than statutory precision, compounding uncertainty for counsel advising on exposure. Third, the scientific-cooperation restrictions impose a direct compliance burden on universities, research institutes, and technology companies engaged in cross-border R&D, potentially accelerating the already deep decoupling of Iranian science from Western institutions.