Iran seizes assets of 240 dissidents as January protest arrests pass 6,000

Iran’s judiciary said on 14 September that it has seized assets belonging to 240 dissidents, journalists and public figures and frozen 182 of their bank accounts, as the national police chief put arrests from the January protests above 6,000.

The figures were published by Mizan, the news agency attached to the judiciary. Of the 240 asset cases, 143 were in Tehran. Mizan said the targets were accused of “propaganda activities or actions against the country and in favour of hostile governments.” A parallel IranWire summary of the same statement used the charge of “espionage and collaboration with Israel and hostile states.”

Some of the seized property, Mizan said, belonged to journalists who work for the Persian-language opposition channels Iran International and Manoto, and to activists and public figures who live outside Iran. The judiciary has sent more than 2,000 inquiries to the Central Bank about defendants’ accounts and warned that more seizures are under way.

One named case is Sadegh Saeedi-nia, described in Iranian coverage as an entrepreneur. His property was confiscated and he received a prison term. Mizan presented that file as an example of proceedings against people it calls traitors.

Police chief Ahmadreza Radan spoke on state television the same day. He said more than 6,000 people had been arrested over the January unrest, which he described as an attempted coup and as assistance to hostile countries on 8 and 9 January. “We will not release these people, except those who express regret and repent,” he said. He also said officers had arrested three members of the Mojahedin-e Khalq the previous night.

Iranian authorities put the death toll from the January unrest at 3,117, including civilians and security personnel. Rights groups have published higher counts. Euronews Persian, citing monitoring groups, said at least 532 people have been executed since January, including 29 people linked to the protests. Those execution figures are not in the judiciary’s asset statement. They sit in the same week’s reporting because the two files now move together: property taken from people abroad, and people still held from January.

The timing is not accidental. After the short Israel-Iran war earlier this year, courts widened the use of collaboration charges. Asset freezes reach bank accounts and houses of people who may not be in the country. That is a cheaper tool than extradition. It also pressures families who still hold title deeds in Tehran and the provinces.

For journalists at Iran International and Manoto the seizure list is a map of who the state still treats as an enemy voice. Those channels operate from Europe. Their staff cannot collect rent or sell a flat in Iran if the title is under a court order. Relatives who manage the property become part of the file whether they appear on television or not.

Radan’s refusal to release most of the 6,000 detainees keeps a large population in legal limbo. Some will be offered repentance as a path out. Others will face trial on the same collaboration language used in the asset cases. The MEK arrests announced on Sunday sit in a different political category. The group is banned in Iran and listed as a terrorist organisation by Tehran. Linking it to the January street protests is a way to describe those protests as an organised plot rather than a wage and price revolt.

The Central Bank inquiries matter for anyone who still banks in Iran. Two thousand requests mean the judiciary is scanning accounts at scale, not only the 182 already frozen. Businesses that share a signatory with a listed person can lose access to payroll. That is how an asset case against one name becomes a liquidity problem for a workshop or a clinic.

What the 14 September statements do not give is a public list of the 240 names, the value of the property, or a court calendar. Without those, the numbers function as a warning more than as a ledger. The warning is clear enough. People who work for opposition media, people who left after January, and people still in custody from those nights are being processed in the same machinery: accounts frozen, titles taken, release conditioned on regret.