When activist Sanaz Yekta arrived home after she was released from Iran's notorious Evin Prison in February, many of her possessions were missing.
Police had raided her apartment in the capital, Tehran, after she was arrested and charged with insulting the supreme leader in 2025, seizing her gold and silver jewelry and smartwatch, among other valuable items, she said.
Despite the 46-year-old's release, the authorities are withholding her possessions and defying a court order to return them.
"I really don't know how I'm supposed to get my belongings back," Yekta said in an interview with RFE/RL's Radio Farda from Tehran. "I genuinely need these belongings."
Yekta is not alone.
Activists say the authorities routinely refuse to return the belongings of people considered political prisoners, arguing the practice is intended to punish former inmates even after they've been released.
For former political prisoners, losing their belongings can be a serious blow, especially as many are effectively barred from government jobs. The nearly seven-month war with the United States has deepened Iran's economic crisis, leaving those already under financial strain even more vulnerable.
"Why do security bodies need the gold of a political prisoner?" said Yekta, who is a member of Iran's Jewish community. "When political prisoners are released, they have financial needs and it's difficult for them to find a job."
Yekta has been in and out of prison in recent years. In 2024, she was detained for six months for allegedly waving an Israeli flag in public and expressing support for Israel, the Islamic republic's arch foe. She was then convicted of insulting the supreme leader late last year. Yekta was sentenced to five years in prison but was granted early release on health grounds.
'It Is Looting'
Other former political prisoners have made similar claims.
Mohammad Habibi, a teacher and union activist, said police seized his two mobile phones, a laptop, and books when they arrested him in 2022. The belongings have still not been returned, he said.
"They call it confiscation; in reality, it is looting," Habibi wrote in a post on X.
Mehdi Mahmoudian, a prominent human rights activist and former political prisoner, said the authorities have refused to return his personal belongings, including his mobile phones, more than eight months after he was detained and later released.
That is despite repeated court orders to return his belongings, he said.
"It seems that in the Islamic republic, a judicial order is nothing more than a letter. Hence, apparently, people's ownership is only respected as long as a security institution hasn't taken a liking to their possessions," Mahmoudian wrote on X on September 16.
"When a security institution seizes people's property and disregards the judicial order to return it, confiscation is just a polite name for the appropriation of people's assets," he added.
'Arbitrary' Seizures
Under Iran's criminal code, objects that are seized must be returned when they are no longer needed for a criminal investigation unless their ownership is disputed or they are subject to lawful confiscation or destruction.
But Mousa Barzin, an Iranian attorney and legal expert based in Turkey, told Radio Farda that this does not always happen.
"First, the seizure itself may be carried out arbitrarily, without a judicial order. Security agents may enter someone's home and take their belongings without even making a list of the items or having legal authorization to seize them," he said.
"Second, during the investigation and judicial proceedings, it is often not taken into consideration that these items are supposed to be returned to the individual once the investigation has been completed."
