Iran’s Moderate Conservatives Might Make A Comeback In 2024

In a letter to the police commander-in-chief Hossein Ashtari, Mohammad Jafar Montazeri pointed out that vehicles are not private property, meaning that any eating and drinking inside cars in public places should not take place.

Ramadan fasting begins Sunday in Iran. It started Saturday, as expected, in Saudi Arabia, once the Ramadan crescent moon was confirmed Friday. The United Arab Emirates and Kuwait also declared Saturday as the first day of the lunar month.

Montazeri stressed that prosecutors across Iran should cooperate with, and support the police, in following holy month’s rituals and regulations. Foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian tweeted a wish that the holy month bring “mercy…to us and all peoples with goodness, tranquility and abundance.”

Fewer people have been observing the Muslim fasting period in recent years but police arrest and fine anyone who breaks the rules in public.

In addition to avoiding certain actions mentioned in the Qur'an, Muslims must abstain from food or drink of any kind from dawn to dusk, which will be about 14 hours in Iran this year.

Every year police enforce a national plan to deal with those who break Ramadan rules in public, and transgressors are sometimes sentenced to months of detention and lashes.

The official government news agency, IRNA, quoted Hossein Amerian, the newly appointed general director of steel industry pension fund that there are 800 investigations taking place to identify all those who are responsible for the losses.

The fund makes retirement payments to tens of thousands of people who worked both at government-owned and privatized steel companies. When the pension fund loses money, the government must step in and fill the deficit in addition to paying pensions of millions of former government employees such as teachers.

Because of the current economic crisis, triggered mainly by US economic sanctions since 2018, the government has been unable to regularly dispense the monthly pensions or adequately increase payments amid a 40-percent annual inflation rate.

Amerian explained that fund managers in the previous government of president Hassan Rouhani invested in money-losing government companies or simply engaged in corrupt practices that cost the pension fund 100 trillion Iranian rials or $400 million.

Officials appointed by President Ebrahim Raisi in recent months have claimed many cases of corruption by former managers, but it is not clear to what extent these are politically motivated. There have also been allegations of nepotism in the new administration, where newly appointed officials want to fire thousands of managers to appoint their own friends and relatives to lucrative posts.

A video of a Khomeini’s statue in flames was circulated on social media in recent days, prompting Qom Friday Prayers leader Alireza Arafi to condemn the act and threaten those behind it.

He described it as "vicious" and said security officials would definitely follow up on this issue. He called it as part of a chain of conspiracies that are aimed at undermining the Islamic Republic.

Qom – along with Mashhad, is the most religious city in Iran, home to the largest Shiite seminary and many hardliner clerics.

As poverty is soaring in Iran and the regime keeps failing to deliver on its promises, such acts of political vandalism are growing across the country.

In February, another statue of Khomeini in the city of Ardestan in the province of Esfahan was destroyed, several days before a recorded message against Khomeini and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was broadcast on the public announcement system in Mashhad’s bazaar.

In January, a memorial statue of Qasem Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Qods Force, was set on fire in the central city of Shahrekord hours after it was erected.

According to a new online survey by a Netherlands-based institute, over 60 percent of Iranians want regime change or "transition from the Islamic Republic".

The survey by Gamaan found that 41% of respondents want the overthrow of the Islamic Republic and 21% prefer "structural changes and a transition from the Islamic Republic". On the other hand, only 18% of the respondents said they were happy with the political system and wanted to preserve the principles and values of the Islamic Revolution which overthrew the Shah of Iran and his Pahlavi Dynasty in 1979.

Gamaan focuses on measuring attitudes in Iran and they shared their latest findings with Persian-speaking media abroad on Friday. The institute has published their survey results also in English in the past.

Prince Reza Pahlavi who has lived all his adult life in exile was the most popular in a list of civil and political figures mentioned in the Gamaan survey with 39% of respondents choosing him over all others including the current rulers of the country.

Over 65% of respondents said they had a positive view of the Prince's grandfather Reza Shah Pahlavi (1878-1944) who founded the Pahlavi Dynasty, while 23% evaluated him negatively. His son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (1919-1980) who was overthrown by the Islamic Revolution of 1979 was viewed positively by 64% of respondents, while 28% judged him negatively.

Prince Reza Pahlavi was followed by hardliner President Ebrahim Raisi with 17%, and former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with 12% of support. Former prime minister and presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi Mousavi who has been under house arrest since 2012, former reformist President Mohammad Khatami, and former moderate Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif were favored by less than 10% of the respondents.

Only 28% of respondents had a positive view of Ruhollah Khomeini (1902-1989), the founder of the Islamic Revolution, while 64% evaluated him negatively. According to Gamaan, his successor and the current supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, was favored by only 26% of the population while 66% judged him negatively.

The survey titled “Iranians’ Attitudes toward Political Systems” was carried out between February 17-27, 2022, with a final sample population of 16,850 literate Iranians aged above 19 who live inside Iran who make up 85% of the adult population.

When asked about their preferred regime type, 34% chose a “secular republic”, 22% the “Islamic republic”, 19% a “constitutional monarchy”, and 3% an “absolute monarchy”. Also, over 21% declared that they are “not sufficiently informed to answer this question”.

According to Gamaan, the results of the survey can be generalized to the target population with a credibility level of 95 percent. The survey employed multiple chain referral to select the sample population, but there has been no peer review yet of the methodology used in selecting the target audience.

Comparison with previous surveys reveals no drastic changes occurring over the past year, Gamaan said.

About 65% of respondents said they favored “nationwide strikes”, 65% “protest campaigns in social media”, 52% “engaging in civil disobedience” to bring about political change in the current milieu of Iran.

Iran witnessed several widespread protests during 2021, including protests over water shortage in Khuzestan and Esfahan while teachers, workers, nurses, and pensioners had to resort to recurring protests demanding improvement in their livelihoods. Security forces dispersed peaceful gatherings in most cases and even resorted to using lethal force in Khuzestan in July and in Esfahan in November.

The results of the survey showed that 88% of the population favor a "democratic political system” while 67% of the population are against “having a system governed by religious law”. Only 28% evaluate favored a religious governing system.

The drawing ceremony was held in Qatar on Friday, while Iran’s legendary goal scorer Ali Daei was also in attendance.

The fourth team of the group will be the winner of European playoffs that may be either Ukraine, Scotland or Wales.

The last time Iran and the US played against each other was the 1998 World Cup in France where the Iranian side beat the United States 2-1 with goals by Hamid Estili and Mehdi Mahdavikia.

According to the updated FIFA rankings, Group B is the ‘group of death’ -- the moniker that is used to describe a World Cup group that looks particularly challenging. Two teams will qualify to move up to the next round of matches.

This comes as FIFA has been urged by many people and organizations from Iran and other countries to ban Iran’s national football team from the 2022 World Cup for Iran’s recent action forcibly barring women from entering the stadium to watch a qualifying match.

A campaign on social media has seen hashtags such as #Fifabaniri (FIFA ban Islamic Republic of Iran) and others rising to the top of most-used hashtags in Persian-language Twitter.

On Tuesday, security forces denied women entry into a stadium in Mashhad, north-east Iran, to watch a FIFA World Cup qualifier between Iran and Lebanon, using pepper spray to disperse them.

A campaign inside Iran sees some former and current members of Iran's national team pledging not to enter stadiums as long as women are not allowed.