🔶 Confiscation of Opponents’ Assets; Funding Repression or Creating Intimidation?

🔻Report by Shirin Shokohbekh

At a time when tensions between Iran and the United States have risen, and Washington speaks of a new campaign to isolate Tehran economically, Iran’s middle class and less well-off are struggling under worsening economic hardship and difficulty in meeting everyday needs; so that in some major cities, the prices of essential goods and services change from today to tomorrow.

However, it appears that the Islamic Republic, amid new sanctions and international pressure, continues its hostile policy toward Washington. By resorting to alternative financial routes, it seeks to reduce the impact of economic pressures. But the instruments of the state to compensate for these pressures have taken on new dimensions.

Meanwhile, human rights institutions have reported raids by government agents on the homes and workplaces of Baha’is in seven provinces across the country, and the arrest of 11 of them.

Shirin Shakib, the spokesperson of the Baha’i community, told Deutsche Welle Persian that the confiscation of Baha’is’ assets has increased in both quantity and quality compared to previous years.

She added: “In the current conditions, all people in Iran are facing severe economic tightness and very difficult living conditions, and they struggle to put food on the table for their families. But the Baha’is are suffering from the economic situation in a doubly greater way, and these discriminatory actions by the government deprive them of their ability to make a living.”

Shakib also said: “The judiciary demands heavy bail for the Baha’is who have been detained, and sometimes these bails are equivalent to the earnings of one hundred years’ worth of a regular citizen’s wages.”

The Baha’i World community, in a press release, also reported that in the recent attacks, “considerable amounts of gold and jewelry, work tools, electronic devices, and personal items including even a wedding ring and even children’s toys have been seized by security forces.”

📌 Read the full text of the report on the Deutsche Welle Persian website.