This is a list of individuals who have defected from Iran.
| Name | Occupation | Year | Notes | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| athlete | 2020 | First woman from Iran to win an Olympic medal (Taekwondo) | [1] | ||
| athlete | 2019 | Olympic judoka and 2018 world champion | [2] | ||
| athlete | 2019 | para-archer who qualified for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo | [3] | ||
| diplomat | 2010 | former press attache at the Iranian Embassy in Brussels | [4] | ||
| diplomat | 2010 | ||||
| diplomat | 2010 | ||||
| nuclear scientist | 2009 | returned to Iran in 2010; executed by Iranian government 2016 “for revealing top secrets to the enemy” | [5] | ||
| 1998 | eldest son of Iranian conservative politician and senior military officer Mohsen Rezaee; found dead in 2011 at a Dubai Hotel, possible assassination | [6] | |||
| intelligence operative | 1996 | [7] | |||
| singer | 1994 | [8] | |||
| athlete | 1986 | weightlifter competing at the 1986 Asian Games in Seoul, South Korea; won the bronze medal at the 242-pound class | [9] | ||
| athlete | 1986 | weightlifter competing at the 1986 Asian Games in Seoul, South Korea | |||
| athlete | 1986 | weightlifter competing at the 1986 Asian Games in Seoul, South Korea | |||
| athlete | 1986 | weightlifter competing at the 1986 Asian Games in Seoul, South Korea | |||
| pilot | 1986 | former pilot for the speaker of Iran's Parliament, Hashemi Rafsanjani; assassinated in Hamburg, Germany, in 1987 | [10] | ||
| iraj Fazeli | pilot | 1983 | Due to his opposition to the regime of the Islamic Republic, he first went to Van in Turkey with the Northrop F-5 (a week later the plane returned). Lieutenant Iraj Fazeli went to the United States and disappeared in the United States in 1989.[11] [12] | ||
| pilot | 1982 | [13] | |||
| diplomat | 1982 | chargé d'affaires at Iran's Embassy in Oslo | [14] | ||
| athlete | 1982 | wrestler | [15] | ||
| athlete | 1982 | wrestler | |||
| pilot | 1982 | Iranian airline pilot; applied for political asylum in Austria after piloting his Iran Air Boeing 727 on a flight from Tehran | [16] | ||
| athlete | 1982 | wrestler; defected during the 1982 World Wrestling Championships in Edmonton, Canada | [17] | ||
| diplomat | 1982 | charge d'affaires at Iran's Embassy in Rome; assassinated in Rome in 1993 | [18] [19] | ||
| military | 1981 | Iranian Air Force colonel | [20] |