Iran's Liquidity Increased By 40% In One Year Amid US Sanctions

In the phone call late on Monday, Afghan foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi said a Taliban delegation will soon visit Iran to discuss the situation of a growing number of Afghan refugees living in the country and those jailed in Iranian prisons.

According to a statement by the Afghan foreign ministry, the two sides also expressed determination to expand cooperation, noting that some groups are using media to sow discord between the two countries and pave the ground for violence.

Tensions are high between the two countries, especially after Afghan protesters attacked the Iranian consulate in Herat Monday hurling stones, smashing security cameras, and burning tires before they were dispersed by Taliban security. People also held a demonstration outside Iran’s embassy in Kabul over alleged mistreatment of Afghan immigrants in Iran.

Following the attacks, an Iranian-backed group organized a gathering in front of Tehran’s embassy in Kabul to express support for the Islamic Republic, but Taliban forces closed its center in Kabul and arrested several people who were connected to it in Herat.

Iranian media’s account of the telephone call said that Muttaqi had assured Tehran of full security for Iranian diplomatic facilities, diplomats and staff in Afghanistan.

Tehran says it will not resume its consular services before receiving assurances from Afghan authorities over protection of its diplomatic missions in Afghanistan.

The parliament gave the go-ahead in its Tuesday session with 190 votes in favor of the move that will probe the transactions of the Iranian Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture (Iran Chamber) during the past 10 years. The Chamber is a quasi-state entity.

On Saturday, the conservative Farhikhtegan newspaper alleged that a review of documents related to the payments of 40 companies to the Chamber in the last four years indicates that a huge amount of money is not accounted for in the institution’s ledger.

In one case, the Chadormalu Mining and Industrial Company was supposed to pay the chamber about 900 billion rials but data show that only 30 billion– about one-thirtieth – was actually paid.

The chairman of the Chamber Masoud Khansari said on Tuesday that the reports are not based on accurate numbers and the Judiciary should investigate where such figures came from, describing the report as a blow to the government.

Earlier in April, the general director of a major government pension fund said that around $400 million was lost either through mismanagement or embezzlement.

Iran ranked 150 out of 180 countries in the 2021 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), one step lower than the previous year, which weakens its struggling economy.

In a post on his twitter page on Tuesday, Kazem Gharibabadi, a senior Judiciary official and secretary of Iran’s High Council for Human Rights, claimed there is religious intolerance in Europe, particularly in Sweden.

Noting that “Religious intolerance is raging across Europe”, he said, “Sacrilege to religious sanctities is under no circumstances whatsoever acceptable”.

“Seems they’ve missed Medieval Inquisition!”, he quipped.

The Islamic Republic has been long accused by United Nations experts and human rights organizations of persecuting religious minorities.

On Sunday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry summonedthe Swedish chargé d'affaires to protest the burning of a Quran in Sweden by Rasmus Paludan, the leader of Danish far-right political party Stram Kurs (Hard Line).

Paludan went to an open public space in a heavily Muslim-populated neighborhood on Thursday, put the Quran down on the ground and burned it while ignoring protests from onlookers.

Since Thursday, several cities across Sweden, such as the Stockholm suburb of Rinkeby as well as in the cities -- were scenes of riots by Muslims and violent clashes, with social media videos showing young men smashing windows of police cars and setting them on fire.

Several people from pro-Paludan protesters and counter-protesters as well as police forces have been injured and dozens of arrests were made by the Swedish police that seems to be struggling to control the unrest.

Internet providers recently increased the cost of their services by between 60 to 100 percent. According to Tehran Municipality's Hamshahri newspaper, only days after the hike in the price of broadband, mobile operators scrapped all six and 12-month subscription packages and have only more expensive 90-day packages on offer now.

The subscription cost increase comes at a time when inflation is around 40 percent and food prices have risen by more than 60 percent in one year. The budget of fixed-income Iranians is stretched thin and many have cut down even on food purchases.

Last summer during his election campaign, President Ebrahim Raisi said his government would make broadband free to lower income families but so far has not delivered on the promise. His telecommunications minister, Eisa Zarepour, on March 22 promised adjustments to the cost of broadband would be done with consideration so that it would not add pressure to the other pressures people were under due to the high inflation.

Many also complain that despite higher costs, the speed of broadband has also gone down. Zarepour on Monday admitted that broadband speed in Iran is low due to lack of infrastructure development in the past few years. Iran ranks between 140 to 150 in broadband speed and 70 to 80 in mobile internet speed globally, he said.

Most Iranians use mobile internet rather than broadband. According to the latest figures published by the government, there are 10.6 million broadband and 84.1 million mobile internet subscribers.

Around 1.7 million small businesses, employing 7-8 million people, rely on online commerce, which can decline if internet subscriptions or usage decline.

Some Iranian media, such as conservative Entekhab, have alleged that the hike in the cost of access to the internet may be an attempt to reduce people's access to the internet. Entekhab called the hike the "silent implementation" of Siyanat (Protection) bill. The controversial bill, ironically titled Legislation to Protect Cyberspace Users’ Rights, critics say, is meant to enforce restrictions on the internet and foreign social media platforms.

If passed, the legislation currently under review would require foreign and domestic social-media networks and messaging applications to register with a regulatory and supervisory body that would include representatives of intelligence organizations. The ministry of communications and information technology would be charged with blocking any social networks or messaging applications that failed to gain approval.

Hardliners are adamant the bill should pass the parliament. Ahmad Alamolhoda, a senior firebrand cleric who is Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's representative in Khorasan-e Razavi Province, on April 8 strongly criticized the parliament for delaying the approval of the controversial bill. "The enemy is at our throat [on social media] and you constantly dilly-dally. What are you waiting for?" he said in his Friday prayer sermon.

Some of the bill’s supporters argue Iran should emulate China's in creating a national intranet. "The Chinese have unique and innovative experience in this field, which we can put to use," lawmaker Ali Yazdikhah said January 18. China uses its ‘Great Firewall,’ a fortified digital border, to manage access to information entering and exiting the country through the Internet.

Iran has been heavily restricting access to the Internet for the past 20 years. Many foreign and Iranian websites, including media websites, are already blocked in Iran although controls are readily sidestepped by VPNs (virtual private networks) and anti-filtering software. While Instagram is the only major social-media platform not blocked in Iran, millions of Iranians use Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and WhatsApp.

The deputy head of Iran's traffic police Teymour Hosseini said on Monday that the Iranian-manufactured cars increase the number of deadly accidents and cost the country billions of dollars of capital. He blamed the low-quality of these vehicles on government-sanctioned monopoly that local automakers enjoy.

Hosseini added that the quality of Iranian cars have a “galactic” gap with the global standards, saying that it would be "very cost-effective" for the country if the managers and employees of Iran's two largest carmakers just "stay at home".

Hosseini said the era when automakers could make small changes and call the result a new car has long passed.

Many Iranian officials and authorities, including President Ebrahim Raisi, are critical of the local car industry, with pundits blaming a “mafia-like” influential group behind a ban on car imports to eliminate competition.

Traffic police chief Kamal Hadianfar once described Iranian cars as “death wagons”, and criticized manufacturers for importing parts from China, saying there is no effective quality control.

Iran's automotive industry, the county’s largest after oil and gas, employs 700,000 workers.

With around 20,000 annual deaths, Iran has a poor traffic safety record. According to World Health Organization (WHO) data published in 2018, road traffic accident deaths in Iran reached 21,831 or 6.5 percent of all fatalities.