Exiled Iran Prince urges Trump to attack Iran, help topple Islamic Republic
"What could change the odds in their favor is the much needed neutralization of the regime's instruments of repression, which can only occur based on what the President stated a few days ago," US-based exiled Prince Reza Pahlavi told Fox News on Thursday.
Tehran crushed protests earlier this month, in the deadliest crackdown on unrest in the nearly fifty-year history of the Islamic Republic.
Amid the violence, US President encouraged Iranian protestors to take over institutions and said "HELP IS ON ITS WAY," in a social media post.
Trump this week said he relented from an attack after Iran stood down on plans to execute 837 protestors in a single day and told the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday that Washington and Iran would hold talks, without elaborating.
"You should not believe a word the regime says, because as an act of desperation," Prince Pahlavi added. "They're trying to buy time, it will make the same false promises that they've done before, and you cannot rely on their words at all."
In a separate message posted on his social media, the prince issued a new appeal to Iranians in the diaspora to attend rallies and better coordinate campaigns in support of protesters inside Iran.
In his video message, Pahlavi thanked Iranians abroad for “large and magnificent” rallies worldwide, saying their solidarity gives protesters at home “strength and hope” and urging them to avoid infighting.
The Iran Human Rights Documentation Center (IHRDC) said a wounded protester who remained motionless inside a plastic body bag for three days out of fear that security forces would kill him was a teenager under the age of 18, according to new information obtained by the rights group.
IHRDC said the teenager was held among bodies of slain protestors transferred to the Kahrizak Forensic Center, south of Tehran, where he stayed still to avoid detection until his family eventually found him alive.
“During the three days he was held among the bodies transferred to Kahrizak, he heard the ringing of cell phones among the corpses and smelled the intense stench of decay,” the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center said, citing the teenager’s account.
The group said the witness described hearing gunfire after sounds from wounded detainees, suggesting they were summarily executed.
“The witness reported that whenever groans from the wounded were heard, they were shortly followed by the sound of gunfire and the cessation of the groaning, strongly indicating that security forces delivered fatal shots to wounded individuals who were still alive,” IHRDC said.
“These details raise serious concerns regarding the treatment of the wounded, violations of the right to life, and extrajudicial killings, including of minors, during the suppression of protests,” the rights group added.
A US military formation including the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, several destroyers and warplanes is set to arrive in the Middle East in the coming days, Reuters reported on Thursday citing two US officials.
The strike group has been en route from the Asia-Pacific region even after US President Donald Trump mooted diplomacy in the wake of an Iranian crackdown on protests which has left thousands dead.
Washington was weighing the deployment of additional air defense systems in the region, the news agency cited one of the officials as saying.
Trump this week said he relented from an attack after Iran stood down on plans to execute 837 protestors and that Washington will hold talks with Tehran, without elaborating.
Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said on Thursday that Tehran planned to take international legal action against the United States for supporting "terrorist' unrest.
Authorities this month quashed anti-government protests in the deadliest crackdown in the Islamic Republic's nearly fifty-year history.
"The explicit and repeated threats made by the US President against the Leader of the Islamic Revolution, who is the highest official authority of an independent state, are an unacceptable act," Araghchi was quoted as saying in a statement posted on the foreign ministry's official page on X.
"Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs is seriously and continuously pursuing legal and international action to establish the responsibility of the US government for the imposed 12-Day War and the recent terrorist operations. The documentation of interventions and hostile actions is underway."
Tehran had previously said it was referring US actions during a war it joined with Israel against Iran last year for international legal consideration. There was no immediate sign that those efforts had advanced.
The number of civilians killed in Iran’s crackdown on protests may top 20,000, UN special rapporteur on human rights in Iran Mai Sato said on Thursday citing reports from doctors inside the country according to Bloomberg.
Tehran has broadened its attack on dissent after the deadliest crackdown on protests in the Islamic Republic's history by seizing assets of those accused of supporting the unrest, in a tactic first deployed amid the state's chaotic birth.
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.
The owner of the Saedinia café chain Mohammad Saeedinia attending a public event
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.
Habib Elghanian, a prominent leader of Iran's Jewish community, seen during his trial in Iran that led to his 1979 execution.
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.
