Professor Cotler, yes, that is exactly true. We know that the regime in Tehran is not indifferent to international condemnation.
We also note that they try very hard to avoid international diplomatic isolation, and those political prisoners whose cause has been championed outside Iran end up being freed sooner or later, while those who become forgotten names because families prefer not to enter a conflict with the regime tend to spend much longer and much harsher time in the Iranian prison system.
By the way, adopting and making names of unnamed political prisoners in Iran also helps the political debate inside Iran, because the regime media try very hard not to make names of the political prisoners and activists, and for that matter of any other kind of prisoner of conscience. When the international media, thanks to, let's say, the efforts of the Canadian government and the Canadian Parliament, begin to put faces to those names, their doing so would make a tremendous change, I believe.