Iran International
Police have shut down dozens of businesses in Iran for disrespecting fasting rules and issued warnings to many others amid the Iranian New Year (Nowruz) holidays.
A police official in Khuzestan Province said Saturday that fifty-five businesses, were shut down in Ahvaz, the capital of the province, for breaking the rules of fasting.
Colonel Mohammad-Hossein Mohammadvand said 229 businesses were inspected, 55 were shut down and 14 others received warnings that they will be shut down if they do not abide by the rules. Inspection will continue until the end of Ramadhan, he said. Similar inspections are carried out in other cities across the country.
During the fasting month which started March 23, restaurants, cafes and coffee shops, tea houses, ice-cream and juice bars have to remain closed until fasting ends around sunset. In the capital Tehran, this falls at around 18:35 at this time of year.
The rules apply to and are enforced in all public places including gyms, schools, universities and factories where cafeterias are closed throughout the month. Even eating inside cars is not allowed.
The fasting month of Ramadan in the Islamic lunar calendar has coincided with Nowrouz (Nowruz) and its holidays. Authorities have been urging people to report if they witness anyone violates fasting in public or hijab rules, by sending text messages to designated numbers or online.
A government-sponsored billboard in the city of Shiraz urges visitors to the city to report hijab, fasting disrespect to the authorities.
Those taking trips during Ramadan are not required to fast if they travel farther than 45km from home and intend to return at least ten days later, according to Sharia. Restaurants situated inside hotels, on transit roads or airports and train stations can apply for special permits to cater to the needs of travelers but they must completely cover their windows so that patrons eating inside cannot be seen from the outside.
“Serving kebabs and other grilled food is prohibited before iftar,” regulations announced by Tehran police Wednesday said while stressing that the number of permits issued in any given neighborhood or city should be low enough not to blur “the difference between this month and ordinary months”.
The religious establishment and its supporters say people should not eat in public during the fasting month “out of respect for those who fast” but many among the non-fasting citizens believe this is unfair.
“You are fasting, Okay, but why should I not be able to eat?” a tweeter protested. “The [real] reason for keeping restaurants closed is not to allow the huge number of those who don’t fast to be revealed.”
Another tweet protested that food businesses must suffer so that the faith of the religious is not threatened with temptation to eat. “You morons, you are fasting so that you feel and understand what it means [not to be able to eat] to the poor!”
Shiite clerics have even coined a term for the acts of eating, drinking, or smoking in public during the fasting hours, which could very loosely be translated into “showing off in public that one is not fasting”. This ‘crime’ is punishable by ten to sixty days of prison or up to 74 lashes according to article 638 of Iran's Islamic Penal Code.
There are similar rules and cash fines and prison terms for eating in public during Ramadan in most Islamic countries including Qatar, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.
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Although the official inflation rate announced by the authorities is usually less than what it seems in the market, even a 46.5-percent inflation is among the highest in Iran in more than 30 years.
The bank did not disclose the point-to-point inflation for the last Iranian calendar month, which ended on March 21, but it provided the price index of the month, from which the inflation can be extracted. The price index for the month was 794.3, which means a 64-percent point-to-point inflation rate compared to the corresponding period of the previous year at 484.6. It is the second time Iran recorded such a figure since World War II.
The latest CBI report also lacks the price index changes of different groups of goods and services, unlike the usual procedure. Moreover, the Statistical Center of Iran (SCI) has not published its inflation report for the past month. SCI has been the only government entity regularly announcing the inflation rate in the past four years.
SCI said on Sunday that the reason behind the delay is the process of changing the “base year” from the year 1395 to 1400, which ended on March 20, 2022. A base year is used for comparison in the measure of a business activity or economic or financial index. It can also describe the starting point from a point of growth or a baseline for calculating financial transactions.
"Due to the changes in the content of the market basket over time, according to international recommendations, it is necessary to change the base year at certain time intervals,” the Statistical Center of Iran said.
Considering the devaluation of Iran’s currency rial from 260,000 against one dollar to about 500,000 this month, the inflation rate is expected to hit new highs in coming months.
The inflation rate factors in numerous commodities and services but the one most important for Iranians is increasing food prices, with some categories doubling or tripling in the past 12 months. Official figures show there was a sharp increase in food prices and most items witnessed a more-than 50 price inflation.
The Islamic Republic has been struggling with high inflation since 2019, but the raging inflation in the past Iranian year which ends on March 20, was seriously different from previous years. Last May, the government eliminated an annual food import subsidy of at least $10 billion, which immediately led to steep price increases.
This was followed by a fall in the value of the national currency, making imports more expensive for the population. The government called its decision to scrap the food subsidy “economic surgery,” but it had no other plans to control prices. Immediately following the announcement, food prices jumped, with some items doubling or tripling in a matter of hours. Pasta is 137 percent more expensive than 12 months ago, while meat prices went up by 76 percent and milk by 80 percent. According to SCI, in some months the inflation rate for food and beverages hit 87%.
In his New Year speech on March 21, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei dubbed the new year as “the year of bringing inflation under control”, a promise also repeated by President Ebrahim Raisi, but reminiscent of similar slogans in previous years.
Following an Iranian attack on US troops, Gabriel Noronha, the former State Department Iran envoy tweeted: “Iran cannot match us on the escalation ladder. But as long as we play tit-for-tat with their proxies, Iran gets a pretty good deal.
“If Iran wants to kill Americans overseas and at home, we could make them pay where it hurts them: their pocketbooks.”
In a strong warning to the US, which carried out a rare strike on Iranian-linked bases in Syria last week, Iran has openly defended its militia there, its regional proxies an issue on which it prefers to stay silent.
Foreign ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani told state media last week: "Iran's military advisers have been in Syria at the request of the Syrian government to help this country fight terrorism, and shall remain by Syria's side to help establish peace, stability and lasting security.”
Supreme National Security Council spokesman, Keyvan Khosravi, responded with equally strongly worded threats, showing a united front in allegiance with its militia in Syria. “Any pretext to attack bases created at the request of the Syrian government to deal with terrorism and Islamic State elements in this country will be met with an immediate counter-response,” he said.
It is an interesting turnaround, not ignored by the world’s Iran watchers. Jason Brodsky, the policy director at United Against A Nuclear Iran, tweeted: “In the past these threats came from an operations room with a vague name “Allies of Syria”, which preserved plausible deniability for Tehran. But in a sign of how emboldened Islamic Republic feels Iran’s SNSC is going public quite clearly with threats.”
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claims the US strike killed eight pro-Iranian fighters. Thursday’s attack was one of the deadliest exchanges between the US and Iranian-aligned forces in years, retaliation for a drone drone attack that left one American contractor dead and another wounded along with five injured US troops.
Semantics on the nature of the attack were typically murky. Washington said the drone used in the attack was of Iranian origin while Iran claimed the site the US hit was ‘civilian’, a rural development centre and a grain centre near a military airport.
Speaking on a state visit to Canada last week, Biden reiterated that “the United States does not, does not seek conflict with Iran,” but said Iran and its proxies should be prepared for the US “to act forcefully to protect our people” and warned “we are not going to stop”.
Biden chooses his words carefully. While Tehran’s growing entrenchment in Syria has drawn regular Israeli air strikes, American aerial raids are rare. The US has been raising the alarm about Iran's drone program but critics say the Democrats are sitting tight to try and cling on to the last shreds of hope for reviving the nuclear deal, the JCPOA, which collapsed last year amidst Iranian intransigence.
Iran is obviously undeterred by threats to crack down on the regime’s militia, and Biden’s critics are pushing for more affirmative action.
When doing the numbers, it is clear Biden is more than reluctant to step into the military arena with Iran, which is not shy of using its proxies around the region. In spite of a recent detente with archenemy Saudi Arabia, the Houthis in Yemen have continued with military action against forces led by Saudi, which could yet jeopardize the path to peace for Iran and its powerful neighbor.
Of 78 attacks on US facilities under the Biden administration, this is a rare retaliation to have taken place. However, although US forces stationed in Syria have been attacked with drones before, deaths too, are rare, attacks more a show of force than a full-blown confrontation.
The US Department of Defense claimed its response last week was “proportionate”, aimed at minimizing casualties, while critics such as Noronha slammed it as “weak. “Just hours after the Pentagon said they were trying to minimize Iranian casualties, their forces attacked three of our bases. Weakness is deadly and provocative,” he tweeted.