Iran is set to auction the residential property of Vali Ghalvazi, husband of Kurdish activist Sheida Rahimi, in Sanandaj, Kurdistan province, citing constitutional grounds under Article 49.
The property was confiscated by the Execution of Imam Khomeini’s Order (EIKO), an organisation established by Ruhollah Khomeini that manages confiscated properties, ostensibly redistributing them to charity. However, this action has been criticised for targeting the assets of political dissidents under the guise of legality.
The confiscation, as reported by the Kurdistan Human Rights Network, dated 29 July 2023, accuses Rahimi of violating the Islamic social contract, thereby nullifying any property transfers aimed at evading Article 49’s stipulations.
Rahimi, who was arrested in May 2016 for her participation in Newroz celebrations, was compelled to flee Iran under pressure. Her daughter, Shiva Ghalvazi, spoke of the family’s attempts to prevent the confiscation, including settling a significant bail amount.
Despite these efforts and an initial court ruling affirming Ghalvazi’s ownership, an appeal by EIKO representative Mehdi Saffari, leveraging Rahimi’s activism, led to the reversal of this decision.
The Tehran Province Appeals Court, swayed by a report and disregarding previous legal decisions, ruled in favour of EIKO, invalidating the property’s transfer and ordering its confiscation.
Shiva Ghalvazi expressed the family’s dismay upon discovering the property had been transferred to EIKO during Vali Ghalvazi’s absence from the country. This case underscores the contentious application of the “withdrawal from social contract” principle in Iran, a tactic increasingly scrutinised by legal experts as conflicting with both international human rights standards and Iran’s own legal framework, particularly in its application to confiscate the properties of dissidents.
