A top Sunni Muslim cleric in Iran has talked about love among all peoples and the importance of women’s rights, in an unprecedented sermon opposing the Shiite regime’s policies.
Several cities in the province of Sistan-Baluchestan, where most Sunni Baluch people live, were scenes of protests against the Islamic Republic on Friday while the regime also organized pro-government rallies in many cities across the country.
This was the 13th consecutive Friday that people in the Sunni-majority cities such as the provincial capital Zahedan and Khash held gatherings and chanted slogans against Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guard. As usual people poured into streets following Friday prayers.
Mowlavi Abdolhamid, the top religious leader of the Sunni Baluch, led the Friday prayer in Zahedan, and during his sermon criticized the regime’s arrest, sentencing and killing of children.
Elsewhere in his sermons, Abdolhamid debunked the Islamic Republic’s accusation of separatists among the protesters in Sistan and Baluchistan, saying that "We are staunch opponents of separatism. Baluch, Kurd, Arab, Persian, Turk, Turkmen, Lor, Gilak and all other ethnic groups are against separatism.” “All Iranians are one and together. Today, Iran smells of love," he added.
"We sympathize with all Iranians and all Iranians are dear to us; Muslims and non-Muslims, we must respect human rights and humanity. Jews, Christians, Baha'is and others should enjoy human rights. The law has not taken away the nationality of any person; even if he does not accept God," he said.
Pointing out that Baha'is are being persecuted by the Islamic Republic, Abdolhamid called for respect for the rights of "all Iranian citizens." Touching on the issue of apostasy verdicts for the Baha'is, he said that "The new generation of Baha’is were not Muslims who wanted to divert from Islam. They were born non-Muslims so they cannot be sentenced to apostasy."
Fereydun Vahman, Professor Emeritus at Copenhagen University, in an interview with International Friday praised Abdolhamid’s remarks and said he is a rare unifying force among Iran’s religious figures. He also hailed his ideas about equality of women and men as well as the equal rights for Baha’is.
Contrary to the Sunni cleric, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s representatives who led Friday prayers across the country, tried to focus on the pro-government commemorations, known in the state media as the occasion of “Day 9 Epic”, the ninth day of the Persian calendar month of Day, which falls on December 30.
Another issue discussed by Khamenei’s representatives – the so-called Friday prayer leaders – was the third death anniversary of Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, the former commander IRGC’s extraterritorial Quds Force. On January 3, 2020, the United States killed Soleimani, as well as the deputy commander of Iraq's popular mobilization units, Abu Mahdi Al Muhandis, in a drone strike near Baghdad International Airport.
The contents of Friday Prayer sermons delivered by clerics appointed by Khamenei in various cities are dictated by two state bodies reporting to his office, officially known as "The Policy-making Council for Friday Prayer Imams" and the "Friday Prayer Headquarters," both dominated by hardliner clerics.
Firebrand Iranian cleric Ahmad Khatami, a member of the Guardian Council, claimed that the Islamic Republic is “invincible,” saying that “dictators want to achieve their goals under the guise of democracy and the defense of women's rights and freedom." He added that the US’ intention to liberate women is to enslave them.
He also described the current wave of protests – which he calls riots – as the deepest conspiracy facing the regime. "In the events, for the first time, the Supreme Leader was insulted, which is actually insulting religion.” Khatami was referring to derogatory slogans chanted by protesters against Khamenei, that anger his religious followers.
The high-ranking clerics have spoken against President Ebrahim Raisi's ultraconservative government, only after the Speaker of the Iranian Parliament Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf (Qalibaf) who calls himself a neo-conservative went to see them in Qom.
This might be the starting point of a shift from policies based on conspiracy theories inspired by presidential adviser Saeed Jalili to more pragmatic ideas Ghalibaf has been offering as a prelude to what he called a move toward "a new governance" in Iran. Some social media users have called the move "a soft coup by pragmatists against the ultraconservatives," who try to blame most problems on machinations by “enemies”, meaning the United States and its allies.
The move comes while the Iranian government is at its lowest point of popularity after three months of street protests and another sharp devaluation of the Iranian currency in a matter of a week which brought the rate of exchange for the US dollar to 440,000 rials.
The clerics, the "sources of emulation" as they are known in Qom, hold the highest ranks in Iran's brand of Shi'ism and they are supposed to lead the nation by example in all matters of everyday life. Nonetheless, it is not clear how many people follow them and their advice.
Following meetings with Ghalibaf, Ayatollah Nouri Hamadani, a clerics who has been always silent in the face of whatever that the government has done to the economy, criticized Raisi for bragging about the country's progress and the state of the economy: "No prices have fallen and none of the people's problems have been solved. The only thing that has certainly happened is the devaluation of the Iranian currency."
Ayatollah Nasser Makarem Shirazi who has usually supported the Raisi administration and all the government's hard-line policies, said, "Not only the economic situation is not improving, but the inflation rate has been rising. People ask us why we do not warn the government about the situation. In factو we do warn, but the state television never broadcast our warnings."
Despite his criticism of the government's economic policies, Makarem Shirazi strongly supported the crackdown on protesters.
Ayatollah Jafar Sobhani said that "the Raisi administration has been always promising to solve the people’s problems but this promise has never been met." And Ayatollah Abdollah Javadi Amoli referred to inept officials and said, "We should not appoint good but otherwise inept individuals or capable but bad individuals who will embezzle government funds."
One of the first outcomes of the ayatollahs’ remarks against the Raisi administration was the replacement of Iran's Central bank Governor Ali Salehabadi who resigned on Thursday. The new Central Bank governor Mohammad Reza Farzin is no different from Salehabadi in terms of policies. However, the shock in the Iranian market because of rial’s steep fall forced the government to make a change to pretend that it cares. The actual change was a slight boost for the rial.
The Jomhouri Eslami newspaper, a conservative daily critical of the Raisi administration's ultraconservative policies, wrote in an editorial on Thursday that it would be a big mistake by officials to get the message of the ongoing protests wrong. And, not acknowledging the government's errors could be an even bigger mistake."
The daily pointed out that there is no silent majority in Iran. The people are suffering from injustice, economic corruption, high inflation and government's broken promises and they feel humiliated as the government does not seek their political participation. All of this and the government's insistence on its mistakes will inevitably escalate the people's dissatisfaction.
The Association of Iranian Journalists expressed concern on Thursday that the administration of President Ebrahim Raisi is coordinating with the parliament to secretly pass bills that would restrict the activities of citizen journalists and criminalize any reporting deemed critical of the regime.
The plan that the members of parliament are pushing forward is cunningly titled “legal and judicial action against the spread of fake news in cyberspace” and the administration is simultaneously devising a bill called “the comprehensive bill of journalism.”
The association claims that they have not released the full texts, noting that by keeping regulations hidden from experts and journalists, they seek to prevent others from critiquing the measures.
Since there is no due process of law in Iranian courts for political trials, the government would be free to categorize even a simple tweet as a criminal act and issue a harsh verdict.
Culture Minister Mohammad Mehdi Esmaeili earlier announced that the bill had been approved by the government's cultural committee and would be sent to the parliament after the cabinet's review.
In its statement, the association of journalists described the measures as “in line with the intensification of restrictions on the flow of information in professional media and cyber sphere,” adding that they violate the rights and freedom of journalists.
The parliament is trying to pass the new plan as part of regulations that would enable the authorities to execute anyone who speaks or sends images to foreign media outlets. Since the current wave of protests began following the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, the authorities have been trying to restrict the spread of information both within the country and from inside the country to the international community.
The plan “to intensify the punishment of collaborators with the actions of hostile countries against national security and interests” describes any cooperation with “hostile countries, including the US government” as espionage. It considers any such cooperation as “corruption on earth,” which is punishable by death according to the Islamic Republic's Penal Code.
According to Article 286 of the Constitution, any serious disturbance in the public order, causing insecurity or major damage to people or public and private property, or spread of corruption or prostitution on a large scale, is considered a ‘corruption on earth’ offense and will lead to a death sentence.
Mobile phones and the Internet made it possible for citizens to record acts of violence and brutality by security forces, which was not possible two decades ago. This has exposed violations of citizens’ rights and has worried the Islamic Republic. A committee, comprised of representatives from Intelligence Organization of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the Intelligence Ministry, Army and parliament’s National Security Committee, is tasked with determining those who are subject to the new law.
When finalized, the legislation would help the hardliner Judiciary to issue death sentences for anyone contacting foreign-based media. Not that the regime does have any reservations about issuing harsh verdicts to the protesters.
The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) said on Thursday that a court in the North Khorasan province has issued a one-year sentence for 40 people arrested during protests on charges of "propaganda against the regime and spreading lies". According to HRANA, some of the convicted people are juveniles, adding that their average age is between 16 and 20 years old.
The regime has already been describing the realities on the ground as “lies” and “conspiracies” instigated by foreign countries, but the new regulations would give them extra pretexts to prosecute citizens and journalists.
This was the question Etemad newspaper in Tehran asked its readers on December 28.
"We were all watching everything, and sociologists had warned us of the looming wave of protests. How could we miss such a big event? Etemad asked.
Many analysts as well as ordinary Iranians believe it was Mahsa Amini's death in ‘morality police’ custody that triggered the protests in mid-September, which still continue after three months.
Others, particularly Iranian reformists say the trigger was pulled long before when the firebrand Friday imam in Mashhad escalated his hard-line rhetoric in support of compulsory hijab and charged that those who opposed strict measures against bad-hijab women were fighting the holy prophet.
Alamolhoda was earlier accused of instigating the nationwide protest in December 2017 by provoking the people to stand against then-president Hassan Rouhani's economic policies. That protest went on for a couple of weeks in more than 85 cities, but the wave receded silently to rise once again louder and more widely in November 2019 in more than 100 cities.
Although Mahsa Amini, the young woman who was visiting Tehran where she was arrested, was an ordinary person, and Alamolhoda is one of the most powerful individuals in the ruling circles, observers say both were equally instrumental in bringing about the current wave of protests although they belonged to different extremes in the Iranian society.
Alamolhoda was later questioned by the Supreme Council of National Security for his role in the unrest, but he said he had no intention of provoking the people.
However, there was one sociologist in Iran in addition to dissidents who were predicting large-scale protests to the existing political, social repression and economic hardship.
Apparently, no one read Mohsen Goudarzi's Nov. 2020 article, Rebellious Citizen in Andisheh Pouya [Dynamic Thought] magazine. He had referred to continuous small protests by teachers, factory workers and retirees following the 2017 re-election of Rouhani. He argued that protests were taking place particularly in the provinces where the turnout and political participation were at their lowest.
The gunpowder barrel was there and was rolling toward the fire, but no one else saw it. The government, like always, attributed the protests to foreign powers and its only response was a harsh crackdown. In the meantime, reformists did nothing more than teasing the government for failing to keep everyone happy.
Goudarzi's hypothesis that was based on keen observation of political movements in Iran was also valid about 2021 that brought Ebrahim Raisi to power with even a lower turnout in large parts of the country.
The hardliners who won the parliament in a low-turnout election in 2020 and the presidency a year later, just cared about monopolizing power, not political participation.
"Nearly in all of those areas there were accrued dissatisfaction about draught and unemployment among other things to which the government reacted by using violence that often led to protesters' death," observed Goudarzi.
Another Iranian sociologist, Asef Bayat, later observed that a new class of poor people has emerged in Iran, adding that unlike the protests in 2009 that was led by the middle class, the protests in 2018 and 2019 were steered by the poor city dwellers who have been left to their own devices by the government.
The government is still in denial of the protests and calls them riots instigated by foreigners and vows to crash them violently as Raisi said on December 27. No one in the government appears to have listened to Goudarzi and other sociologists, and as Goudarzi has said himself, they refuse to accept that although protests may recede at times, but they will definitely return with a bigger bang.
As the dollar surpassed 430,000 rials , President Ebrahim Raisi replaced the chief of the Central Bank of Iran and ordered his economic team to come up with ideas to support the collapsing rial.
Raisi appointed Mohammad Reza Farzin as chief banker. Farzin, who has been the CEO of Bank Melli Iran since last year, was also chairman of the board of Karafarin Bank before that.
During the cabinet meeting where Farzin was appointed, Raisi stressed the importance of controlling the value of foreign currencies, asking central bank chief to “manage” the situation.
Since the current wave of protests began in Iran in mid-September the rial has fallen to record lows, losing more than a third of its value against the dollar, fueling inflation of around well over 50 percent. The rial has now lost about 80 percent of its value compared to mid-2021 and close to 50 percent since December 2021. Inflation is also skyrocketing. Food prices have jumped much faster than the overall inflation, with some items registering 100-percent increase in one year.
The impact of rial’s devaluation is still not fully felt in the market, but Iran faces the danger of hyper inflation in the coming months.
On Wednesday, Khabar Online, an Iranian conservative website published an article that said the historic devaluation has proven to be divisive among the country’s hardliners. Hardliners in parliament and some in the military have begun harshly criticizing the presidential administration that they were praising just recently.
Numerous officials and insiders, including senior clerics are issuing warnings about the rial’s fall that puts people’s livelihoods in jeopardy, but no one is willing to take responsibility.
Mohammad Eslami, the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization, said, "The dollar rise and rial’s fall is one of the plots by the Americans," adding that the US wants people to be fed up with the economic hardships so they took to streets to protest.
He was probably referring to tough sanctions imposed by the United States since 2018, when the Trump administration withdrew from the Obama-era nuclear accord known as the JCPOA. The Biden administration held talks with Iran for 18 months to revive the agreement but the diplomatic effort stalled in late August, because Tehran made unacceptable demands, according to Washington.
Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi claimed that "There is plenty of foreign currency in the country," a statement which might anger ordinary people even more, who would blame the government for not supporting the rial.
Professor of Economics at California Lutheran University Jamshid Damooei, described the situation as an unprecedented “economic storm” whose root cause is the lack of confidence in the government’s economic policies. He told Iran International that the majority of the Islamic Republic’s income has always been from selling oil, which has been impeded due to US sanctions. Rial’s fall will lead to higher inflation, which in turn will drag the currency lower, he argued.