Tehran Calls Iran International Similar 'To A Terrorist Media'

Yashar Soltani, who has spent some time in jail in 2016 for disclosing financial corruption at Tehran Municipality under current parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, added in an interview with Etemad Online that the way government treats financial corruption is woefully disappointing.

The multi-billion dollar case involving the former mayor, a figure close to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, ended in the arrest of Isa Sharifi, one of Ghalibaf's deputies and was finally pushed under the carpet although Khamenei in 2018 called for investigation into the case. Sharifi's name came up once again in February 2022 along with Ghalibaf's in a major corruption case at the IRGC, which also remained inconclusive after a few weeks of controversy stirred by rival political factions in Iran.

The controversy about the IRGC corruption case was silenced soon possibly because even former IRGC Qods Force Commander Qasem Soleimani was also involved, as revealed in an audio tape that was leaked in the public domain presumably by those who benefitted from the revelations.

As a whistleblower who has been exposing financial corruption in Iran since the 1990s, Soltani says that corrupt individuals have never left the system even after their performance was exposed, and corruption is constantly on the rise. He added that the Iranian justice system discriminates in favor of corrupt individuals when they are close to the core of the regime, namely Khamenei's household.

He said: "Fighting corruption is part of the people's demands as the magnitude of government corruption is so high that the regime has no way but to try to control it through introducing reforms in the system." However, he acknowledged that most of the rhetoric about fighting government corruption is just a show, often with the intention of winning the people's attention at election times or to calm the situation when there are major protests.

Soltani pointed out that while corruption trials were held openly and the people could watch hearings on live TV in the 1990s, corruption cases are now shrouded in an aura of secrecy. Soltani reiterated that as long as talk about corruption is aimed at beatifying the political system or garnering support for a group of candidates, there will be no hope in controlling it.

Nonetheless, there seems to be some progress in the process. "When I disclosed the astronomical real estate case [in Tehran municipality] in 2016, I was jailed immediately, but five years later I was called for consultation for writing a new law to prevent that kind of corruption as part of which the Municipality gave land and buildings to influential individuals to garner their support," Soltani recalled.He added that regardless of his help, the Iranian Judiciary has been summoning him during the past 11 years to subtly warn him about his whistleblowing activity.

"They ask why me and not the intelligence agencies investigate a case. Well, the intelligence agencies did their own research but what they got nowhere because there are flaws in the structure of the government," he said, adding that, "There are only four or five people who continue as whistleblowers, and all of them like me work single-handedly without any support from anyone in the system."

Referring to the problems in the system, he said the corruption case at the Petrochemical Complex (PCC) was a major case. But there were a few stage-managed court sessions and nothing more happened.

He was referring to a case of hundreds of million of dollars embezzled by officials who were tasked to sell Iran’s petrochemical products through obscure channels and return the money to the treasury during international sanction in 2010-2013.

Soltani concluded: "There are so many inconclusive cases about financial corruption in Iran. In a corrupt structure you cannot claim to be dealing with corruption."

Ali Khan-Mohammadi, the spokesperson of Iran’s Headquarters For Enjoining Right And Forbidding Evil, tasked with promoting the Islamic Republic’s interpretation of Islamic laws, said on Sunday that the body has signed an agreement with the country’s judiciary to use Basij paramilitary forces as hijab enforcers. 

According to the new agreement, the roles of mosques and local Basij bases will increase in the enforcement of dress code laws and commanders of Basij units will be ordained by the judiciary as official hijab enforcers.

Basij are religious zealots and a paramilitary force under the command of the Revolutionary Guard. Their involvement in hijab enforcement will further increase tensions in Iran.

Removing hijab is a legal offence by women, and the government’s position will not change in this regard, Khan-Mohammadi stressed. 

Since antigovernment protests started across the country in mid-September, when 22-year-old Mahsa Amini was killed in the custody of hijab, police, many Iranian women are now appearing in public places without headscarves to express solidarity with protesters.

On Saturday, Commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Hossein Salami threatened people not to take to streets anymore saying that Saturday was the last day of protests. 

It said the statement released by the IRGC and Intelligence Ministry against two female journalists, who alerted the public about Amini’s injury and death in police custody, had no message other than to end journalism in the Islamic Republic.

Mahsa Amini was arrested on September 13 by the notorious hijab police and immediately received fatal blows to her head and died three days later in the hospital. As the public became aware of the tragic event protests began in Iran’s major cities that have continued for more than six weeks.

The statement by the journalists’ group said that based on the intelligence bodies’ declaration, “journalism should be declared a crime and banned, because the normal activity of two of our colleagues in performing their professional duties has been considered a crime.”

On Friday Iran’s IRGC Intelligence service and the Intelligence ministry issued a statement regarding the recent events in the country introducing Niloufar Hamedi and Elahe Mohammadi, two women journalists arrested days after protests began in September, as “foreign agents.”

They alleged Niloufar Hamedi, who published the photo of the deceased Mahsa Amini on a hospital bed, was “among the people trained in special courses abroad.”

The popular nationwide protests triggered by Amini’s death have been the longest sustained movement against the Islamic Republic.

“Using the cover of a journalist, she was one of the first people who arrived at the hospital and provoked the relatives of the deceased and published targeted news,” adds the statement.

The intelligence organizations offered no evidence about the two journalists having travelled abroad, received training, or having any ties with foreign organizations.

Tehran Journalists Association also lashed out at the intelligence ministry and IRGC Intelligence “accusing two of the most professional journalists of the country of being trained abroad is considered an insult to the intelligence of the audience and the journalists community.”

The journalists’ association also denounced the “security-minded approach” to the profession of journalism, stating that not only this approach is “illegal and against freedom”, but it is also the main factor or at least one of the factors causing the [current] crisis in Iranian society.”

In its 43-year history, the Islamic Republic has arrested hundreds of journalists, and many have been killed inside and outside prisons. The regime keeps tight control over all print media and has a monopoly over radio and television. It also tightly censors Internet content by blocking thousands of websites and major social media platforms.

This followed Iran summoning German ambassador Hand-Udo Muzel Thursday, when Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani criticized Berlin for provoking “rioting and law-breaking in Iran” contrary to international law.

Germany had Wednesday said it would tighten entry restrictions on Iranian officials, issuing visas only where “absolutely necessary.” In a statement Wednesday announcing the measure German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said there could be “no ‘business as usual’ in bilateral relations with a state that treats its own citizens with such contempt for human rights.”

Iran has repeatedly criticized European states over ‘interference.’ Spokesman Nasser Kanaani said October 18 that European Union sanctions over the September 16 death in Tehran ‘morality police’ custody of Mahsa Amini amounted to “exploitation of human rights as a tool to achieve political goals.” Tehran has also alleged foreign-owned media and social-media operations have fostered violence.

Following Tuesday’s attack on a shrine in Shiraz, claimed by one outfit linked to the Islamic State group (Isis- Daesh), Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, said Iranians had “a duty to deal with the enemy and its traitorous or ignorant agents.”

State media reported Wednesday the killing of two Basij militiamen in the northern city of Amol, a Revolutionary Guard in Tehran province, and three people in Mahabad who had tried to occupy government and security centers. The US-based activist agency HRANA has said at least 252 protesters have died in the unrest, while state media have said around 30 security-force members have been killed.

Change through trade?

Iran is one issue gnawing at Germany’s coalition government, led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz, a Social Democrat, formed December 2021 as the first for 16 years without the Christian Democrats.

When the Social Democrat Party (SPD) won last year’s German elections, Iran’s official news agency IRNA predicted a more positive relationship. But while foreign minister Baerbock, a member of Alliance 90/the Greens Party, has upheld a commitment to international talks aimed at restoring the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the recent protests in Iran have led Saskia Esken, an SPD co-leader, to call for ending the talks. “The talks must end in the way that the women and men on the streets are being dealt with at the moment,” Esken said October 16.

Lars Klingbeil, another SPD co-leader, in mid-October questioned the party’s long standing belief in ‘change through trade,’ the notion that increased commerce, linked to effective diplomacy, would moderate states deemed authoritarian. The SPD applied the approach particularly to Russia, but the same argument has been widely accepted within the EU in support of the Iran nuclear agreement.

While Germany has dragged its feet over reducing Russian energy supplies, straining relations with France, it has promised Ukraine €1.2 billion ($1.19 billion) in military aid – delivering howitzers – behind only Poland on €1.8 billion, the United Kingdom on €3.74 billion and the United States on at least €27.6 billion. German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, also a Social Democrat, said Friday the Ukraine crisis had replaced “old dreams” – referring to former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev’s dream of a “common European home” – with “a time marked by war, violence and flight…”

The body was discovered on Thursday in the undercarriage of the Airbus that arrived at Frankfurt airport from Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport after the passengers of flight LH 601 had left the aircraft and the A340 had been moved to a hangar for maintenance.

“In a routine check of a Lufthansa plane coming from Tehran after landing in Frankfurt, a dead body was found in the plane’s landing gear bay,” Lufthansa said in an email seen by Iran International, adding that Tehran flights will be suspended until circumstances of incident are clarified.

Director General of Imam Khomeini International Airport Saeed Chalandari said Lufthansa’s representative informed them about the incident by phone, adding that the issue cannot be followed up without written documents. Iran’s Foreign Ministry also announced that no documented evidence has been received from the German side yet.

The incident comes amid nationwide turmoil in Iran, ignited by the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman who was detained by the Islamic Republic's so-called morality – or hijab -- police for "improper attire" and died in police custody.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said earlier in the week that Berlin is mulling over more restrictions for entry of individuals affiliated with the Islamic Republic beyond an already announced EU sanctions package over Tehran’s human rights violations, adding that visas will be issued to holders of service and diplomatic passports only where absolutely necessary.

Germany has a large Iranian population, tens of thousands of which took to the streets of Berlin on October 22 in solidarity with the ongoing antigovernment protests in Iran.