Saudi Arabia, US Reiterate Common Vision To Confront Iran Threats

According to IRNA on Sunday, the National Security Council as well as the provincial and city security councils are also excluded from the plan that is expected to obligate members of parliament and state officials to make their votes and decisions available to the public. The details of the negotiations in various parliamentary committees will also be available to the public.

The parliament also makes the publication of final rulings of the general and revolutionary courts conditional upon "observance of security standards".

Moreover, the Guardian Council and the Assembly of Experts are not included in the plan in the first place. 

However, according to the bill, all private institutions in charge of public services, including Iran Central Bar Association, Medical Council of the Islamic Republic, and Justice Experts' Association, as well as non-governmental organizations and charities will be included in the transparency plan and will be fined for non-compliance.

The measure also makes it mandatory for the entities as well as municipalities of cities with over one million population to register and regularly update data about their financial statements, budgetary performance, project investments, and number of employees.

According to the annual ranking of countries released by Transparency International earlier this year, Iran ranks 150 out of 180 countries in the 2021 Corruption Perceptions Index.

Vida Mehrannia said in an interview with Germany’s ZDF channel Saturday evening that her husband is not executed yet, expressing hope “that the EU can really act decisively in order to bring Ahmadreza home”.

She said that the EU must “not allow an innocent man to be killed in such an inhuman way".

Djalali was arrested while visiting Iran on an invitation by a university in 2016 and consequently sentenced to death on unsubstantiated charges of espionage for Israel. Espionage is a charge Iran often uses against foreigners and dual nationals that they want to hold as a bargaining chip.

Amnesty International on Thursday accused the Islamic Republic of taking Djalali "hostage" and using him as “a pawn in a cruel political game."

The United Nations human rights office also urged Iran last week to halt the execution and rescind Djalali’s death sentence.

Amnesty provided a detailed research and analysis to prove that Iranian authorities are threatening to execute Djalali to compel Belgium and Sweden to hand over two imprisoned former officials, and “to deter them and others from future prosecutions of Iranian officials”.

There has been speculation that the announcement of Djalali’s execution was intended to influence the trial in Sweden of Hamid Nouri, a former Iranian official, over his alleged role in a wave of prison executions in Iran in 1988.

According to a report by Iran’s official news agency IRNA on Saturday, Owji and his Omani counterpart Mohammed Al Rumhi agreed in a meeting to start laying the gas pipeline that will enable Iran to pump natural gas to the Arab Sultanate.

Describing the project as one of the biggest regional energy projects, the report said the initial agreement was signed in 2004 between their oil ministers but has been stalled since then.

According to the contract, Iran committed to start supplying 30 million cubic meters (mcm) per day of natural gas to Oman by 2008 and then increase the volume to 70 mcm per day by 2012.

The two countries also reached another agreement in 2013 according to which Iran was expected to pump 28 mcm a day of gas to Oman for 15 years through a pipeline laid on the bed of the Persian Gulf. The project, which had been estimated to earn Iran more than $1 billion annually, never became operational.

The report said that Owji and Rumhi also reached agreements on the joint development project for the shared Hengam oil and gas field, located within their maritime boundaries in the Strait of Hormuz.

President Ebrahim Raeisi is scheduled to travel to Oman on Monday for an official visit, while Muscat has traditionally played a mediating role between Tehran and Washington.

The ministry’s public relations manager Mohsen Motamedkia denied the news that the ministry takes collateral from athletes for foreign travel in a tweet on Friday, saying he enquired about the issue and the ministry’s authorities denied the claims.

He made the remarks in reaction to a post by sport journalist Hiva Yousefi, who had publicized the issue on twitter.

Replying to the journalist, a member of Iran’s national rowing team, Ahmad Ahmadi, said the property must be at least 5 billion rials (about $20,000) and owned by the athlete or a family member, adding that if the athlete does not return to the country, it will be transferred to the relevant sport federation's treasury.

Ahmadi said a notarized pledge to transfer the property is signed before the trip, adding that the federation also gets two guarantee-of-return undated checks of about $500 and $1,000 from the athletes.

Earlier in the month, Yekta Jamali, the first Iranian female weightlifter who won medals in international tournaments, sought asylum in Germany after she left Iran’s team at the World Junior Weightlifting Championship in Greece.

About 30 Iranian athletes in recent years have defected from national teams and sought asylum in other countries, due to alleged threats and corruption in sports federations as well as Iran’s policy of not allowing athletes to compete against Israeli peers. For women mandatory hijab is also an issue.

State propaganda organizations and the ministry of education have been promoting ‘Hello Commander’ in schools since it was broadcast from state television for the first time this year after Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s Iranian New Year speech on March 20.

Teaching the song to children has apparently become compulsory in schools. In the past two months it has been performed at huge gatherings of school children in city squares and stadiums and broadcast by the state television (IRIB) in news and other programs.

‘Hello Commander’ is a song dedicated to Mahdi, the 12th Imam of Shiites who has been in occultation since the 9th century according to believers. The song and its promotion are unusual as the music is in the often frowned upon pop genre which has no place on Iran’s state media.

“Me, the little me, will become your general,” children sing to the Imam, promising him to rise up, to sacrifice everything to him, and to become his Ghasem Soleimani, the Revolutionary Guard’s Qods Force commander who was killed by the United States in Baghdad in 2020.

The song also mentions 313, the number of the Imam’s helpers when he returns to earth, and is full of words such as “soldier, general, commander, and “uprising” as well as other religious terminology and notions.

‘Hello Commander’ also mentions Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei who is believed by his devotees to be the Imam’s representative on earth and has to be obeyed as the Imam would be if he were present among believers. “Hello Commander! Sayyid Ali [Khamenei] has called his children [to mobilize]!” children sing.

The education ministry is now planning a 100,000-strong gathering at Tehran’s Azadi Stadium to perform the song at a special ceremony next Thursday (May 26) although a football match this week at the same stadium was held with no spectators “to prevent the spread of Covid.” Many alleged that the decision to hold the match without spectators was a measure against eruption of an anti-government protest during or after the match

The promotion of the song by the state media is meant to indoctrinate children and brainwash them, critics allege. They also say the promotion of the song by state media and the Islamic Republic’s propaganda organizations is reminiscent of Nazi propaganda methods which included teaching children and the youth songs in praise of the Führer.

Many social media users have seen the song as propaganda for Khamenei as the Imam’s deputy, and commander-in-chief of Iran’s Armed Forces, and drawn a parallel between him and Hitler by sharing a video of Nazi Youth gatherings with the original audio replaced with ‘Hello Commander’.

“In his last years, like all other dictators, Hitler resorted to performance of a ‘Hello Commander’ song in schools to reassure his supporters but this didn’t save him from defeat because it was too late,” one of the many such tweets by critics said.

London-based Iranian journalist Morteza Kazemian also shared photos of Nazi Germany’s huge gatherings in Hitler’s support on Twitter with the ‘Hello Commander’ hashtag and said dictators are destined to fall, even if they are as powerful as Hitler.