Ultra-Hardliners Push For More Restrictions In Iran
Maryam Sinaiee
Iran International
Emboldened by less street protests in January, Iran's ultra-hardliners have been pushing for further restrictions on social freedoms and freedom of expression.
Iran International
Emboldened by less street protests in January, Iran's ultra-hardliners have been pushing for further restrictions on social freedoms and freedom of expression.
Commenting on the issue of hijab, lawmaker Hossein-Ali Haji-Deligani said in an interview with Entekhab news website recently that he believes the country should have an entity dedicated to “promotion of virtue and prevention of vice” as a completely independent organization to enforce hijab. “Our society and religion do not accept today’s kind of [lenient] hijab,” he said.
Haji-Deligani who is also a member of the parliament’s presidium had said a day earlier that lawmakers, including him, had submitted a new motion to prevent celebrities and those with political, social, military or cultural influence, from “making irrelevant and inexpert statements” on the country’s affairs.
“Unrestricted expression of views is not permissible,” he said when announcing the motion’s submission.
If parliament passes the proposed law, any person of influence could be charged with ‘corruption on earth’ for making “untrue” remarks on matters requiring official clarification provided that their statements cause “serious disruption of public order, insecurity, or major physical damage to individuals, public or private property, or promote moral corruption.
‘Corruption on earth’ is punishable by death in Iran's Sharia-based laws.
The law not only will silence even insiders from criticizing a shortcoming but will eliminate whatever limited criticism appears in media. Journalists will be the top targets of such a law. Already dozens are under arrest or have face political charges.
“This means, in simple terms, that no one is allowed express any beliefs, view or even analysis [over a subject] before authorities make an official statement,” Fararu website wrote about the controversial motion. “Expressing views [over a matter] is criminal if there are rumors going around town about it, even if the rumors are true but different from the official account.”
“The problem is that lawmakers and some decisionmakers think that the events of the past few months resulted from expression of views in social media and the media. They don’t have a proper, logical and clear view of the causes of protests and think they can prevent them from happening again if they shut the mouths of critics and experts,” Nemat Ahmadi, a prominent lawyer and commentator based in Iran, told Fararu.
“As a matter of fact, I believe that this motion is not meant to prevent rumors and lies. If it turns into law, it should be called ‘The Shutting of Mouths Act’,” he added.
Haji-Deligani is a member of the parliament’s totalitarian Paydari faction which consists of members of the small but very influential Islamic Revolution Endurance Front. The party represents the most extreme right end of the conservative-hardliner spectrum collectively known as Principlists.
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has on many occasions eulogized the group’s mentor, Ayatollah Mohammad-Taghi Mesbah-Yazdi, who passed away two years ago.
Mesbah-Yazdi famously once said Khamenei’s rule was superior to that of the Islamic Revolution’s founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. He also preached that Khamenei is the representative of the twelfth Shiite Imam Mahdi whose reappearance from occultation will set the day of final judgment in motion.
The faction gained dozens of seats in the current parliament in the 2020 elections with the help of the Khamenei-appointed Guardian Council which disqualified not only reformists but many of Paydari candidate’s conservative rivals.
Conservative politician Mansour Haghighatpour, a former Principlist lawmaker, also criticized Paydari’s new attempt to restrict freedom of expression. “The problem is that after the last election a radical, extremist group has taken control of the parliament that does not want to hear [other] voices, views, or criticism. I mean the same group that is controlling the administration,” Haghighatpour told Fararu.
He added that this extremist group is responsible for “the majority of costs” that the Islamic Republic is now paying domestically and at the international level.
Hossein Kanaani-Moghadam, another former lawmaker and secretary general of the Principlist Green Party, also criticized Haji-Deligani’s recent remarks. “I believe such attempts would not have any outcome other than more corruption, anger, and dissatisfaction in the country.”
In an Instagram post Tuesday, Bagheri, a former national team player, announced details of a bank account he had set up for collecting donations for the victims of the magnitude 5.9 earthquake in the city of Khoy which left three dead and injured hundreds. Tens of aftershocks have been registered since Saturday’s earthquake.
Meanwhile thousands of people spent their fifth night in sub-zero temperatures without adequate shelter and supplies as the government has failed to provide sufficient aid.
Mizan news, the news agency of the judiciary, said Wednesday the account was blocked because he had not requested a permit. The judiciary also said celebrities’ charity drives in the past had “resulted in crimes such as fraud”.
The judiciary also said it had banned collection of donations by individuals upon a request by the Red Crescent society. The ban effectively prevents citizens, particularly celebrities known to oppose the regime, and independent charities from collecting any donations during earthquakes and other natural crises.
The only possible explanation is the regime’s disdain for any public initiative outside its structures, which could encourage independent activism in society.
Thousands in Khoy, a city of 200,000, and its surrounding villages who have lost their homes are still sleeping outside in the freezing cold for the fear of further tremors, and power is still out in many places. Government’s earthquake assistance is scarce and there are very long queues where necessities such as tents are distributed.
The government has dispatched security forces to the area in big numbers “to maintain order”. Locals say security forces have blocked the roads leading to Khoy and prevented popular donations from reaching the victims.
Those who take videos are arrested, locals say. A citizen-journalist said in a video taken secretly which he sent to Iran International, that the Basij militia of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) treat the victims harshly and do not allow anyone to take videos.
First Vice President Mohammad Mokhber admitted Wednesday, during a visit to the quake-hit Khoy, that the aid sent to the area in the past few days has been far from meeting the immediate demands of the victims.
Mokhber, however, cast the blame on the Red Crescent Society for the shortcomings and accused the secretary general of the Red Crescent, Dr Yaghoub Soleimani, who was accompanying him for “falsely reporting that the conditions in the quake-hit area were satisfactory.
“People say they sleep in the cold [outside] but you claim you have distributed tents. We thought the situation was good based on your report. It’s several days since the quake and some people have neither bread nor water or tents. You should have told us to provide all the necessary items,” Mokhber told Soleimani in front of cameras.
The Iranian Red Crescent Society is only nominally a non-governmental organization. The society is tightly controlled by the government and its head is an appointee of the president.
Announcing the deactivation of his account by the authorities, in another post Wednesday Bagheri apologized to his fans whose attempt to donate had failed. “I hoped substantial donations could be given to our people, but God is my witness that my hands are tied.”
Bagheri had successfully launched a charity drive to help victims of another earthquake in East Azarbaijan Province in in 2012. At the time he said he had handed over the donations to the authorities to use for rebuilding houses destroyed by the quake.
The government similarly blocked the account of former soccer legend Ali Daei in November 2017 when he requested donations to help the quake-hit people of Kermanshah and personally went to the area to deliver the aid consisting of 15 trucks of clothing, food, and blankets. Daei had also raised $1.7 million in cash.
In a 128-page report on the current protests across Iran condemning institutionalized oppression of women and the Islamic Republic’s brutal response to quell the uprising, the senate decried the use of live ammunition and indiscriminate force by security agents against civilians.
The Foreign Affairs, Defense and Trade References Committee, which issued the report, urged the Australian Government to be unequivocal in its response to violence and human rights abuses in Iran, adding that “whilst Iran’s future must ultimately be written by the people of Iran in its own streets, the protection of human rights is a moral obligation and a practical necessity for us all.”
The committee, reporting on behalf of the senate, said that “evidence presented to the committee painfully illustrates the wholesale maltreatment of a nation by the very authorities whose job it is supposed to be to safeguard and protect the Iranian population.”
“Hundreds have been killed and many thousands wounded. Tens of thousands have been arrested. A number have been sentenced to death—some already executed—without access to a fair trial. Confessions are extracted through torture. Adults and children are subjected to horrific physical and sexual abuse in prison,” read part of the report, titled “Human rights implications of recent violence in Iran.”
Having studied a very large sample of submitted reports and evidence, the report made a series of recommendations designed to hold accountable a regime for abusing its own people, and reduce the Islamic Republic’s ability to violate human rights without consequence.
The committee recommended that the Australian Government take the necessary steps to formally categorize the IRGC as an organization involved in supporting and facilitating terrorism, also calling for the use of sanctions to target Islamic Republic and IRGC-affiliated individuals and entities responsible for malicious cyber activity against Australia.
It also urged the government “to use the available Magnitsky legislation to expand the list of individuals and entities subject to sanctions in response to human rights abuses in Iran, with particular focus on senior officials responsible for violence, human rights abuses, arbitrary detention and executions without due process.”
The document also called on Canberra to oppose the election of the Islamic Republic to United Nations’ bodies in light of the regime’s clear disregard for human rights, it said, particularly the rights of women and girls.
The senate also expressed concerns about credible allegations of intimidation and threats against Australian citizens, residents and their families, urging the responsible government ministers to provide an update to the Parliament and the Australian public on the government’s current assessment of whether persons connected to the regime are undertaking such behavior in Australia.
The committee also recommended that Australia should minimize relations with the Islamic Republic to “the greatest extent possible in recognition of the appalling behavior of the regime,” adding that the government should increase transparency and better inform the public about the status of its diplomatic relations with Tehran, as well as the security concerns in relation to the regime’s behavior relating to cybercrime, hostage diplomacy and threats to Australian residents.
“Implementing the committee’s recommendations would place Australia more firmly in the community of nations which have heard the Iranian people cry: Enough,” read the report, acknowledging that “Australia lagged well behind many of our partner Western democracies in taking action to send a clear unambivalent message to the Iranian regime that what they are doing is grossly unacceptable.”
The West has stepped up pressure on Iran over its crackdown on protests and arms supply for the Russian invasion of Ukraine as the US, European Union and United Kingdom imposed fresh sanctions on Tehran.
Earlier in the day, US Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley said that “all corners of the Biden Administration have worked urgently and powerfully to mobilize the international community and confront the Iranian regime’s human rights abuses.”
On Tuesday, US lawmaker Representative Claudia Tenney (Rep-NY) reiterated, “We must impose the strictest sanctions possible on the leaders of the murderous Iranian regime, which is the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism.”
Iran International received an audio recording from a January 30 meeting where Mohammad Reza Salehi, a logistics chief at the Presidential Office under President Hassan Rouhani, spoke bitterly about the current situation in Iran. The meeting took place between former presidential aides and provincial governors with former Vice President Es'haq Jahangiri.
Salehi argued that Khamenei's supervisory role should be emphasized while his executive powers need to be limited in a bid to control his successor's behavior.
He said that as a result of the uprising in Iran, reformists and moderates have four options before them: Hoping for a foreign military attack; joining the protesters and helping t revolution in Iran; doing nothing and hoping that the regime will implode as a result of increasing financial corruption. The fourth and last option is working hard to bring about real and serious reforms in the structure of the regime by reducing the power of non-elected and non-accountable offices and strengthening the political structure's republican nature and restoring the people's right to determine their fate.
Salehi added that the first three options are dangerous for Iran and Iranians and that reformists should choose the fourth option that is pursuing reforms.
Salehi, who appears to be a committed reformist, in fact made some of the same arguments his peers have made for years, but Khamenei has reacted by mostly banning them from state structures with the support of hardliners and the Revolutionary Guard. However, asking to curtail Khamenei's executive powers is a new demand by a reformist.
Salehi then pointed out that a series of destructive measures have been taken by the government recently including the controversial ‘privatization plan’ announced by the heads of the three powers of the government. The measure, he said, includes putting a couple of major natural gas refineries (Parsian and Jam) at the disposal of the Imam's Executive Headquarters, a subsidiary holding that operates under the aegis of Khamenei's office.
According to Salehi, the other destructive measures being furthered by the government includes a new legislation to restrict freedom of speech by barring everyone including state officials, political activists and the media from commenting on social, economic, cultural and political affairs before the most senior officials make their definitive comments.
A similar measure, Salehi maintained, was legalizing the practice of giving crude oil instead of money to settle government debts to those who have carried out projects. Meanwhile, Salehi criticized the government's financial plans and said that the budget bill for the next Iranian year starting in late March has been drawn in a way that would make Iranians poorer.
He said: "In the budget bill the government's revenue is supposed to increase by 40 percent while taxes are to rise by 60 percent. This comes while the cash handout to the poorer Iranians will not be increased, and public employees will receive just a 20 percent raise. This will only increase poverty in Iran."
Speaking about the recent protests he said, "What took place was a protest not a riot," as state officials insist. He also made it clear that "Those detained were not tried fairly. Hasty trials led to executions which was tantamount to systematic massacre."
Meanwhile, he revealed that former police chief Hossein Ashtari had suggested to go on TV and apologize for the murder of Mahsa Amini in September and remove a few officers involved in the case to calm popular anger, but he was ordered to mightily confront the protesters.
Salehi then asked Jahangiri to brief Khamenei on the country's current situation and convince him to hold free and fair elections, uphold the people's rights, attach more importance to elected bodies and regulate the President's relations with other powers.
He also suggested that as the next Supreme Leader might oppose holding any referendum, Khamenei should be convinced to agree to hold a set of referenda to omit the word "absolute" from the leader’s title. There should also be votes about resuming political ties with the United States, banning military's intervention in political affairs, doing away with the discretionary vetting of presidential and parliamentary election candidates, implementing the nuclear deal (JCPOA) and agreeing to accept the terms of the FATF (Financial Action Task Force, an international watchdog).
According to information received by Iran International, Ashkan Baluch, a kickboxing athlete, who was sentenced to five years in prison, attempted suicide in a prison in Tehran and been taken to hospital, where he jumped off the third floor in a second attempt to kill himself. He remains in hospital in serious condition.
Jalal Pirdayeh, a master's student at Sharif University, has been sentenced by a revolutionary court to two years of imprisonment, two years of a ban on leaving the country, and two years of ban on activities in cyberspace.
Maryam Shokrani, a journalist at Shargh newspaper, also announced in a tweet Tuesday that after she was charged with "propaganda against the regime" she has been set free on bail, but she received another notice from the revolutionary court that her charge is changed to "acting against national security".
Meanwhile, Hengaw Human Rights Organization said Mohammad Abbaszadeh, an artist from southwestern Ilam province, has received a two-year prison sentence, a two-year ban on leaving the country, and the payment of a fine.
The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) reported that Saman Seidi, a rapper arrested during recent protests, was transferred from a prison in Karaj to an unknown location on January 28.
In the meantime, the case of Shiva Musazadeh, a master's student in dramatic literature at Tehran University of Arts, who was arrested twice during the nationwide uprising has been referred to the Khorramabad Criminal Court.
The campaign of Baluch activists also announced the arrest of eight students of Badr al-Uloom seminary in Zahedan saying that at least six of them are from Afghanistan.
In another development, Abdol-Mahdi Mousavi, the Chief Justice of Markazi Province, said several people have been detained and five others were summoned as they planned to "cut off the Internet and electronic surveillance after obtaining weapons."
Iranian intelligence and security agencies often bring unsubstantiated charges against dissidents, who are then tried behind closed doors without a lawyer.
Information received by Iran International also indicatess that Hawri Qaderi, a 22-year-old from Marivan in Kordestan province, was arrested on January 2 by security agents and taken to an unknown location. Since his arrest, he has talked only once to his family, and efforts to find out his whereabouts have failed.
More details have also emerged about regime security forces resorting to violence against citizens.
Mahmoud Alizadeh Tabatabai, a lawyer, told Jamaran website that "doctors at an eye Hospital in Tehran have said that they had removed several hundred eyeballs."
Security forces use shotguns to fire shells filled with small steel balls at protesters. The shells are known as ‘bird shots’ and are indiscriminate in nature as they spread among a crowd and often injure eyes.
The lawyer added that heavy sentences have also been handed out to teenage students and high school girls.
Furthermore, Ashkan Marovati, an Iranian Kurdish boxer, who was shot during a fight with security agents, told the CNN that there were about 200 birdshots in his body and the officers fired at him from a close range.
The Kurdish boxer also added that the officers took him to the hospital because they were sure he would die.