A British newspaper says the founder of the activist group Code Pink met twice with men who were later sanctioned by the United States for helping Iran’s intelligence service recruit Westerners.
Story Snapshot
- The Telegraph reports Medea Benjamin attended a 2014 Tehran conference tied to a group the U.S. Treasury later sanctioned for Iranian intelligence work.
- Two men she met there, Nader Talebzadeh and Hamed Ghashghavi, were later identified by U.S. officials as intermediaries for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.
- The Telegraph says it obtained a handwritten note Benjamin appeared to send Ghashghavi after the event.
- Benjamin returned to Iran in 2019 and met then-Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif; she has also appeared on Iranian state television.
- No report shows Benjamin knew of any intelligence role at the time or received payment from Iran.
What The Telegraph Found
The Telegraph reported Benjamin traveled to Tehran in 2014 for a conference run by a group called New Horizon. Five years later, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned New Horizon, saying it served as a platform for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard to recruit and gather intelligence from foreign visitors. The paper says photos show Benjamin with the group’s chairman and its secretary for international affairs at that event.
Those two men, Nader Talebzadeh and Hamed Ghashghavi, were later described by U.S. authorities as go-betweens for Iran’s Quds Force, the foreign operations arm of the Revolutionary Guard. The Telegraph says it obtained what appears to be a handwritten note Benjamin sent Ghashghavi after the conference, though the full text and how it was verified have not been made public.
A Pattern That Goes Back Years
Benjamin’s ties to Iran did not start or stop with one trip. A 2014 report described her giving a 25-minute interview to Press TV, Iran’s state broadcaster, while she was in Tehran. She returned in 2019 with a Code Pink delegation and sat down with Iran’s foreign minister at the time, Mohammad Javad Zarif, according to later reporting on her travels.
Benjamin has long argued against U.S. military action toward Iran and has traveled there as part of her broader antiwar work. In a 2024 statement, she said, “We do not believe in supporting governments; we support people.” Code Pink states on its website that it takes no money from China or any other foreign government, and The Telegraph said it found no evidence the group received Iranian funds.
What The Evidence Does Not Show
Attending a conference, posing for photos, and writing a note are not the same as working for a foreign spy agency. Fox News, reporting on the broader Iran story, noted that calling someone an “asset” does not by itself prove she knowingly cooperated with Iranian intelligence. No report has produced a payment record, a recruitment agreement, or a statement from Benjamin admitting any such arrangement.
The timeline also matters. Treasury did not sanction New Horizon, Talebzadeh, or Ghashghavi until 2019, five years after the conference where Benjamin met them. That gap means the available evidence does not show she knew about any alleged intelligence role when the contact happened in 2014, even though the later sanctions now color how that meeting looks.
Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin met two men later sanctioned by the United States over their links to the Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force during a 2014 conference in Tehran, The Telegraph reported Friday.
Benjamin was photographed at the New Horizon conference alongside… pic.twitter.com/idw3BfoWkM
— Alex kennedy (@Alexkennedy213) October 24, 2026
The story lands as tensions between the United States, Israel, and Iran are running high, with Israeli leaders publicly calling for pressure on Tehran’s government. That backdrop makes any reported Iran contact, even an old one, land harder in today’s political climate. Groups like Code Pink, which built its name organizing anti-war and pro-Palestinian protests, now face fresh questions about who they’ve met and why, regardless of whether those meetings ever crossed into anything illegal.
Sources:
thegatewaypundit.com, conservativehq.com, en.wikipedia.org
