Monarchist Political Activist: My Share of My Father’s Factory Has Been Confiscated

IranWire has obtained documents and information indicating that the Judiciary of the Islamic Republic has seized the share of Masoud Bakhtiari, a monarchist political activist who has sought asylum in Armenia, from a jointly owned property inherited from his father by him, his sisters, his brothers, and his mother.

Mr. Bakhtiari’s name also appeared in one of the property confiscation lists published by the Judiciary in April.

Masoud Bakhtiari told IranWire that this property, which his father spent years of hard work purchasing and building, belongs to a defunct shoe factory in Hamadan. The factory was known before the revolution as Wales Shoes, and its owner, Masoud Bakhtiari’s father, Haj Seyfollah Bakhtiari, was later forced to rename it Ziba Shoes after the revolution.

According to Mr. Bakhtiari, the Iranian government has attempted to claim this property for itself several times: “We have had this property since the Shah’s era; my father bought it through hard work. My father was a factory owner. He holds 20 to 30 certificates of appreciation from various countries for the quality of his products. A few years ago, they also forcibly took 300 meters of it from us under the pretext of widening the road.”

Who Is Masoud Bakhtiari, and Why Have His Assets Been Seized?

Masoud Bakhtiari is a 51-year-old monarchist political activist born in Tehran. Originally from Hamadan, he left Iran during the “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests after learning that he was being pursued.

Mr. Bakhtiari previously experienced arrest and several days of solitary confinement on two occasions: once in July 1999 during the Tehran University dormitory protests, and again approximately ten years later. During his interrogations, he was repeatedly accused of “fear-mongering.”

On both occasions, however, he was released after a few days of detention and was not prosecuted further: “I did not receive a sentence for that arrest. At that time, everyone was dissatisfied and protesting, but the protests were sporadic. We would protest for a while, and then conditions would return to normal. People weren’t really in the mindset of wanting to overthrow the regime. It is only now that we have dedicated our entire focus and effort to an overthrow. It wasn’t like this back then. They released me and told me I had to report back in two or three months. I never went, and no one came looking for me either.”

Nevertheless, in 2022, following the killing of Zhina Mahsa Amini and other young and teenage girls such as Hadis Najafi, things changed: “It began with Mahsa Amini, whose life they took. We couldn’t tolerate it. My life changed from that point on. It took such a heavy toll on me that I thought you just have to put your life aside and go after an overthrow. I cried every day, especially for the girls who were killed. My house was in Mehrshahr, Karaj, and Hadis Najafi’s house was very close to ours. Because I participated in the protests of 2022 and my sister, Homeira Bakhtiari, is a political activist in the United States, once I joined in as well, they claimed that the Crown Prince was financially supporting them. I found out through some friends that these reports had been filed, so I left Iran immediately.”

Homeira Bakhtiari is a monarchist activist residing in the United States. According to documents reviewed by IranWire, her share of the jointly owned property, which, according to Mr. Bakhtiari, belongs to the defunct Ziba Shoes factory owned by their father, has also been barred from transactions.

I Used to Work for Yandex; Now I Do Deliveries

In the Islamic Republic, asset confiscation is nothing new; it began with Ruhollah Khomeini’s rise to power in February 1979. Even the assets of entrepreneurs and artists were seized. For years, this remained a tool in the hands of Khomeini and the revolutionaries until his death and the ascension of Ali Khamenei. Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani then took control of the situation and, aiming to attract domestic and foreign investment, characterized the prior confiscations as “incorrect rulings by young judges.”

Simultaneously over these years, however, the Islamic Republic has been engaged in institutionalizing the seizure of assets belonging to citizens who oppose or protest against it through institutions such as the Execution of Imam Khomeini’s Order (EIKO), one of the largest financial empires under the supervision of the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic.

Furthermore, the Islamic Republic has also codified Khomeini’s initial fatwas regarding asset confiscation into law. According to Articles 45 and 49, the assets of affiliates of the former regime and ownerless lands can be seized by the government and confiscated through a court ruling. Mousa Barzin, a lawyer and legal adviser to IranWire, previously told IranWire that the majority of early-revolution confiscations relied on Article 49 of the Constitution, which addresses “windfall wealth” and was used to confiscate the assets of those affiliated with the former regime. Article 45 focuses on abandoned, ownerless lands whose owners were either executed or forced into exile.

Additionally, the rule of “Exclusion from Protection” (Khoruj az Estiman) is a jurisprudential principle under which the assets of political and civil activists, and even human rights defenders and lawyers defending citizens’ rights, have been confiscated by the government. Marzieh Mohebi, a prominent human rights lawyer, is one of the individuals whose assets were confiscated under this jurisprudential principle due to her support for the “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests and her defense of protesters’ rights.

Moreover, the law on “Intensifying the Punishment of Spies and Collaborators with Hostile States,” which was passed in Iran last year, has also embedded procedures for the government to seize the assets of dissident citizens both inside and outside Iran.

A report published by the Mehr News Agency on April 11, which also includes Masoud Bakhtiari’s name, states that “in line with the law on intensifying the punishment for espionage and cooperation with the Zionist regime and hostile countries against national security and interests, and countering the hostile actions of hostile media operatives who cooperate with the Zionist-American enemy and take steps toward strengthening the enemy,” the assets of 400 athletes, artists, journalists, and activists have been identified and seized.

This is an issue that Masoud Bakhtiari himself refers to, saying: “On October 7, I released a video and said I am ready to join the Israeli army to destroy Hamas.” He also points to another video that gained more than one million views on his Instagram page, noting that after the massacre of protesters in January, he stated he was ready to join the Israeli and US militaries so they could destroy the Islamic Republic.

In the days following the January massacre, amid public shock and mourning over the killings, while promises of military assistance from Israel and the US were repeatedly made to protesting Iranian citizens, campaigns were formed in support of a military strike on Iran. Even within Iran, videos related to the protests, including one showing a street being renamed after Trump and another of a protester speaking English and inviting Donald Trump to attack the Islamic Republic and overthrow it, were reshared numerous times on social media. Mr. Trump himself reshared one of these videos on his social network, Truth Social.

Our Lives Are in Danger Here

According to Masoud Bakhtiari, who sought asylum in Armenia nearly a year ago and remains active there, he was completely unaware of the seizure of his assets in Iran until friends informed him: “Here, I work doing deliveries with a car. Because we don’t know the language, for any job we want to do, they ask, ‘Do you know the language?’ Since we don’t know it, it’s not possible.”

He also points to his experience working for the Yandex company, the Georgian version of Uber and Snapp, in Georgia, where he lived for a time alongside his fiancée after leaving Iran, saying: “I had bought a car and was working for the Yandex company. It is just like Snapp and Uber. I would pick up and drop off passengers. Before that, I also did service work in a hotel.”

According to him, on one occasion, after dropping off a passenger at Tbilisi airport, officers detained him. Even though his asylum application case was under review, they gave him two choices: either remain in the detention center until his court date or leave Georgia. He ultimately decided to go from Georgia to Armenia: “They said they wouldn’t let me out of the detention center. They wouldn’t even send me to a camp. I saw that such a life was not suitable for me. I was a political activist, and I couldn’t stop fighting. They said you must buy a ticket and go to another country. Between Turkey and Armenia, where it was possible for my fiancée and me to go, we chose Armenia.”

According to Mr. Bakhtiari, he and his fiancée have been under pressure in Armenia as well: “Not only my fiancée and I, but many activists here face mortal danger. The thugs of the Islamic Republic travel here as if they are going from Tehran to Isfahan. For our asylum case, they kept putting us off at first. We went and told them it is very dangerous for us because no one is looking out for us. They were forced to agree to review the case, but up until now, which will be one year in 20 days, our case remains open.”

IranWire has so far received several reports regarding pressure on political activists residing in Armenia. According to one of these reports, the country’s security agency warned several Iranian political activists living in Armenia during meetings that their lives were in danger, asking them to scale back their activities and avoid moving around the city. Previously, Masoud Taheri, a Christian convert residing in Armenia and a monarchist activist, had also told IranWire that his Iranian passport had been revoked due to his opposition to the Islamic Republic, leaving him in a state of limbo.