Iran says planning legal action against US over protest 'terrorism'

Judicial authorities in Qom province last week announced the confiscation of all assets and bank accounts belonging to Mohammad Saeedinia, the founder of a popular cafe chain operating in several Iranian cities.

Saeedinia had been arrested a day earlier and officials linked the move to his alleged support for strikes and protests after he temporarily closed his cafés following calls for strikes and work stoppages.

State-affiliated Fars News reported that assets linked to Saeedinia—including cafe chains, a roadside complex and food-industry businesses—were valued at between 25 and 27 trillion rials ($17.5–19 million).

Prosecutors said similar cases had been opened against dozens of other cafes, as well as actors, athletes and signatories of protest statements, adding that some assets had already been seized to compensate for damage to public property.

No violent crime, financial fraud or national-security offense has been publicly substantiated in Saeedinia’s case. Instead, it illustrates how economic pressure has emerged as an element of state repression in a practice with a long pedigree.

Confiscation codified

From the earliest months after the 1979 revolution, confiscation was used not only to dismantle the ancien régime’s economic base, but to restructure ownership and concentrate power within institutions aligned with the new state.

In the chaotic post-revolutionary period, seizures were carried out in what amounted to a legal vacuum. Revolutionary courts and ad hoc committees confiscated property under broad ideological justifications, often before a coherent judicial framework existed.

Decrees issued by Ruhollah Khomeini concerning “ownerless” or “illegitimate” property created elastic categories through which private assets could be absorbed by revolutionary bodies.

Although framed as redistribution, these measures laid the economic foundations of new power centers.

Over time, confiscation was institutionalized through bodies such as the Foundation of the Oppressed and the Execution of Imam Khomeini’s Order, as well as through legal provisions including Article 49 of the constitution, which targets “illegitimate wealth” without defining the term.

Among the early and most consequential targets was Ahmad Khayami, a pioneer of Iran’s modern auto industry and co-founder of Iran National, later Iran Khodro. The seizure of his assets and removal of private control over the company marked a decisive break with Iran’s pre-revolutionary model of industrial entrepreneurship.

Another prominent case was Habib Sabet, an entrepreneur active in media, construction and commerce, and the founder of Iran’s first private television network. His assets were confiscated in the revolution’s aftermath, reflecting how independent capital—even without overt political involvement—was treated as incompatible with the new order.

Private sector hobbled

The execution of Habib Elghanian, a leading industrialist and head of Tehran’s Jewish community, sent a particularly chilling signal. After a summary revolutionary trial in 1979, his assets were seized and he was put to death, accelerating capital flight and underscoring the risks facing private enterprise in the new Islamic Republic.

The impact on Iran’s modern private sector was significant.

Entrepreneurs who had built manufacturing, retail and financial enterprises over decades were removed, their assets transferred to state or quasi-state structures. Many left the country.

Others were sidelined through prosecution or regulatory exclusion.

As revolutionary fervor faded, the practice evolved rather than disappeared. Highly publicized trials and executions gave way to asset freezes, license revocations and selective enforcement. Confiscation became less spectacular but more routine, embedded in administrative and judicial processes.

Recent protest cycles have again brought these mechanisms to the fore. Business closures, account seizures and professional bans have accompanied crackdowns, reinforcing the message that economic activity remains conditional on political compliance.

The seizure of Saeedinia’s assets fits squarely within this longer trajectory. It is not an isolated response to unrest, but part of a system in which control over property has, from the outset, served as a means of political management.

The American Jewish Committee (AJC), a global Jewish advocacy and human rights organization, on Thursday called on national governments to respond to the deadly crackdown on protesters in Iran, urging tougher sanctions and concrete support for Iranians risking their lives for basic rights.

“The courage of millions of Iranians who are demanding dignity, accountability, and a more secure future for themselves and their families must be met with a decisive response from the international community,” AJC CEO Ted Deutch said in a statement.

“At this critical moment, the world cannot look away as the Iranian regime guns down its own citizens in the streets and silences those who dare to speak out,” Deutch added.

US Representative Buddy Carter of Georgia has called for the removal of the daughter of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council secretary, Ali Larijani, from her post at Emory University in the state capital Atlanta.

“I write to demand the immediate removal of Dr. Fatemeh Ardeshir-Larijani from her position at Emory University and the revocation of her Georgia medical license,” Carter wrote in a letter to the university and the Georgia Composite Medical Board.

The US Treasury last week sanctioned Ali Larijani for “coordinating” the Islamic Republic's response to nationwide protests on behalf of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and for publicly calling on security forces to use force to repress peaceful demonstrators.

It sanctioned him alongside other alleged "architects" of the deadliest crackdown on protests in the Islamic Republic's nearly fifty-year history earlier this month.

Ardeshir-Larijani is an assistant professor in the department of hematology and medical oncology at Emory medical school, whose official website describes her research as focusing on "new target discovery and defining an immune resistance mechanism in lung cancer."

Carter, who represents the district around the Atlantic port city of Savannah, said Larijani had “recently and publicly advocated violence against Americans and US allies” while holding a senior national security position, and argued that his daughter’s continued role treating patients in the United States was unacceptable.

“Physicians are entrusted with intimate access to patients, sensitive personal information, and critical medical decision-making,” Carter wrote, adding that allowing someone with close family ties to a senior Iranian security official to hold such a position posed risks to patient trust, institutional integrity and national security.

Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado said she met with Iran’s exiled prince Reza Pahlavi to discuss coordination between their movements and efforts aimed at political change in Iran and Venezuela.

“As authoritarian regimes deepen their criminal cooperation, those of us who stand for freedom must coordinate even more closely,” she said in a post on X.

“A free Iran and a free Venezuela are more than just goals; they are essential conditions for a secure and democratic world,” she added.

Internet traffic in Iran began to rise at around 18:00 UTC on January 21 as two weeks of a nationwide digital blackout approached, with increases seen across several

Cloudflare added that traffic growth was seen across major operators MCCI, IranCell, TCI and RighTel, with RighTel showing a more significant and sustained increase.