Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado said democratic governments must raise the cost for Iran’s rulers to stay in power in an interview with Iranian activist Masih Alinejad.
Machado said Iran and Venezuela were bound by deep cooperation between their rulers, even as people in both countries rise up against repression.
“The Iranian people, the Venezuelan people, we are fighting the same struggle,” she said. “These regimes have been cooperating for many years, exchanging resources, information, technology, agents and weapons.”
She said authoritarian governments help each other bypass pressure and maintain control, while democracies often stop at statements.
“Dictators help each other, they exchange technology, resources, they help each other bypass sanctions and they support each other in international forums,” Machado said. “Democratic governments stay at statements and declarations that at the end do not serve the people.”
Machado said people in Iran had reached a breaking point and were calling on the world to respond.
“We reach a point where the people start asking the world to react and to support,” she said. “What we are asking for is to stop the killings and to save lives.”
She criticized what she described as double standards among democratic governments that condemn repression while maintaining economic ties.
“You sign declarations talking about freedom and equality and respect for human rights, then you do business with these regimes,” Machado said. “You buy oil from these regimes and you keep their assets and resources in your own financial systems.”
Praise for Trump action
Machado praised Donald Trump for taking decisive action against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and said it showed what firm leadership could achieve.
“Finally in Venezuela we’re seeing President Trump making a tremendous important decision,” she said. “Bringing a criminal to justice is precisely what the world needs.”
She said the move sent a signal beyond Venezuela.
“It has brought a lot of hope,” Machado said. “This is a milestone.”
Machado said repression continues when dictators see little cost in using force.
“When you’re dealing with criminals, the only way they will leave is when the cost of staying in power is higher than the cost of leaving,” she said.
She said opposition movements cannot succeed alone without coordinated international pressure.
“We have done everything that any civic movement can do and they are killing us,” Machado said. “What we are asking for is applying law enforcement and cutting the resources they use to fund repression.”
Machado said the fall of Iran’s ruling system would have consequences far beyond the country.
“Imagine how the world will look once the Iranian criminal regime falls,” she said. “This is a unique moment in history.”
She said cooperation among opposition groups and diasporas was essential.
“These regimes help each other, and we the people need to connect and coordinate,” Machado said. “Regardless of how far away we are, we are united in this aspiration.”
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.
