Iran Pundits, Ex-Diplomats Welcome An Interim Agreement With US

In response to a question on the issue by Iran International, State Department Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel also insisted that the President Joe Biden “has long said that he's committed to ensuring Iran never get to nuclear weapon, and we still believe diplomacy is the best way to achieve that goal. At the same time, we're preparing for all possible options and contingencies in coordination with our allies and partners.”

Axios reported on April 3 that according to multiple sources the administration shared a plan with allied governments to strike a partial deal with the Islamic Republic to freeze its uranium enrichment at 60 percent in exchange for some sanctions relief.

If true, Iran would gain the advantage of being a few months away from producing 90-percent enriched uranium needed for a nuclear weapon and enjoy the benefits of sanctions relief.

The Axios report also said that Israeli officials told the Biden team that Iran would be threading on dangerous ground that could lead to an Israeli military strike if it enriches above the 60-percent level.

However, spokesperson Patel said, “Rumors about nuclear diplomacy tend to seldom be accurate.” This is basically the same response given to Axios before it published its report, which does not categorically deny the report but tries to categorize it as a rumor that could be inaccurate.

Nearly 18 months of indirect talks with Iran to revive the 2015 nuclear accord, the JCPOA, reached a deadlock in September, and the administration since then has insisted that continuing the talks is not on its agenda.

In his latest rant, he claimed this mysterious entity intends to target the intellectual strengths of the Islamic Republic by “weakening women's modesty”.

In a gathering of poets affiliated with the regime on Wednesday, without referring to the Women, Life, Freedom movement, Khamenei attributed the civil disobedience of women to “Westerners”.

He said they “have no [genuine] pity for Iranian women nor do they have any respect for their rights. Rather, they have a grudge against Iranian women and falsely present themselves as supporters of freedom and women's rights.”

He went on to say that “the West is not worthy of being the one to talk about human rights at all” claiming that "Right now, women in Western countries have the most complicated problems; [even] more than other countries."

During the recent unrest, women have been on the streets burning headscarves, cutting hair, dancing in public centers, and appearing without the clothing approved by the regime in defiance of the regime.

In the past months, the Supreme Leader and officials of the Islamic Republic have repeatedly tried to link the nationwide protests to foreign countries.

Despite the claim of the authorities about respecting women's rights in Iran, the government policies are based on reducing women's social responsibility to "wifery and housekeeping" and any protests in this regard are harshly suppressed.

At a meeting with state officials Tuesday, Khamenei claimed that foreign intelligence services were encouraging Iranian women to disobey mandatory hijab. He also claimed that “the enemy” is working according to “a plan and plot” and urged authorities to have their own plan for dealing with the issue of hijablessness.

“Discarding hijab is haram based on Sharia and also politically,” he declared. His declaration was a clear signal to authorities that they need to do anything it takes to re-establish control over women which had somehow waned following anti-regime protests.

“The order given by his excellency is clear,” Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf said Wednesday while promising to give precedence to any hijab-related motion or bill.

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Following Khamenei’s cue, the ministry of interior in its second statement on hijab within a week, alleged that the opposition to compulsory hijab was an enemy plot advanced by foreign intelligence services and the opposition outside Iran, who through social media are trying to use it to “create deep social divides and a divide between the people and the government.”

Airport staff refusing to offer services to ‘hijabless’ women in Shiraz

Claiming that the ministry is responsible for ascertaining and defending “rights of the majority of the people,” the statement said it will fully support the activities of vigilantes who have been harassing women to follow the Islamic dress code.

The ministry also said the judiciary and other organizations involved in the enforcement of compulsory hijab will take action “against the few who act against the society’s norms” to defend the “dignity and identity of the Muslim Iranian women.”

Mahsa Amini’s death in ‘hijab police’ custody in September sparked the protests That engulfed the country nearly non-stop for four months. Many women burned their headscarves during the protests, vowing never to surrender to compulsory hijab again.

‘Hijabless’ women are now seen everywhere, even in some of the most conservative cities. For many, this is a form of civil disobedience. Some social media users have said that in some public venues such as restaurants, ‘hijabless’ women outnumber those who wear headscarves.

On Wednesday, an official of Tehran’s Metro Organization, Masoud Dorosti, said his organization has set up a “chastity and hijab taskforce” for enforcement on public transport. According to Dorosti, the first phase of the plan, giving verbal warnings to women who do not abide by the hijab requirement, has begun at metro stations. Tehran municipality has adopted similar plans.

The police and the judiciary have also resorted to pressuring businesses to enforce the hijab on their premises.

Authorities have shut down hundreds of shops, restaurants, cafes, and ecotourism facilities during the two-week New Year (Nowrouz) holidays across the country.

Earlier this week, the ministry of higher education said institutions under its coverage will no longer offer educational and other services to students who do not abide by hijab rules.

The Islamic Azad University, which is not administered by the ministry, has also announced strict measures against defiance of the compulsory hijab. The university which has over 1.1 million students across Iran has ordered its faculty to “seriously manage” abidance of the hijab rules by their students and threatened them with repercussions if students flout hijab in their classes.

“Conflict between professors and students? We are teachers not police or sheriffs. It is knowledge that will eventually be harmed by destroying teachers’ relationship [with students],” a professor of criminal law at Tehran university, who was recently sacked for criticizing the regime after the execution of four young protesters, said in a tweet Tuesday.

The news comes amid reports of the cultural icon’s sense of hopelessness in the face of the country’s dire political and economic situation having led to his death.

Pour-Ahmad had described the popular protests that started last September as “bloody and painful” and wrote: “With all the scorching we have on our souls, what festival, what festivity?”

Initially, reports had claimed Pour-Ahmad died of a heart failure, but the Iranian magazine, Today’s Film, reported that he ended his life because of “depression, despair, the feeling of uselessness and lack of hope in future. Simply so terrible, unbelievable, horrible and shocking,” citing sources close to the star.

The verdict of the 74-year-old’s suicide was ruled by Mehdi Fallahmiri, the prosecutor in northern Gilan Province, who initially dispatched a murder investigation team on hearing the news of Pour-Ahmad's death.

Though the suicided was confirmed, Fallahmiri said “further investigation” is needed. The body has been transferred to the coroner’s office.

Unconfirmed reports say that he left an eight-page letter explaining his decision. However, the content of the note has not been disclosed.

Mehdi Kouhian, an attorney who has been close to the legal cases of detained artists during recent protests recently warned of the toll the unrest and subsequent crackdowns on the cultural community were having in a chilling foreboding of the fate of Pour-Ahmad.

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Just days ago, he publicly recommended that the community of artists should help those who were being persecuted by the government by providing secure therapy services.

In a tweet Thursday, he said: “As a result of close contacts I had with dissident artists in the past seven months, I warned less than a month ago about their psychological condition.”

The veteran filmmaker was not a revolutionary and once admitted that before the 1979 revolution he had a beard, but when he saw protesters burning a bookstore, he shaved it off.

Although he was not an outspoken critic of the regime, like some other famous artists who have been jailed, he had become critical of the clerical regime’s intrusion into artistic works.

He had spoken out against censorship and Iran’s annual Fajr Film Festival, where the government increasingly intervenes to ban films it deems “unsuitable”.

Some have already labeled Pour-Ahmad’s death as “government murder” with tributes pouring in from around the world.

Journalist Noushabeh Amiri, who is now in Europe, Tweeted: “Pour-Ahmad was killed by the filthy Islamic Republic, yes, killed.”

She went on to say, “Killing can take different forms. When you chock off the air from an artist, when you pressure him every day, when you take his unfinished film and give it to security agents to complete it, when…This is how they killed Kyumars.”

He will go down in history as one of Iran’s greats. His most famous production was a TV serial called Majid’s Stories, about a boy living with his grandmother, which captivated children, teenagers and adults alike.

Film critic Mehrsa Rahnema told Iran International TV that Pour-Ahmad was one of the few Iranian filmmakers whose films and serials captured the hearts of people of all ages, because he was so close to the real lives of ordinary people.

Member of Parliament, Mohammad Sargazi, said most citizens consume water, tomato paste and bread as their main meal.

Sistan and Baluchestan is the poorest province of Iran with a population of around 4 million, including 700,000 Afghan nationals.

During the past years, this region has experienced many crises, including shortage of fuel, bread, and drinking water, as well as drought, widespread unemployment and increasing poverty.

Despite frequent promises to improve the situation, successive administrations have done little to invest in the region, create jobs, build housing or even decent schools. Some children study outdoors, while teenagers smuggle small quantities of fuel to neighboring Pakistan to make some money.

Narcotics smuggling from Afghanistan is also a serious problem in the region, with hundreds of small-time traffickers executed each year according to Iran's tough criminal laws.

In the recent popular protests following the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, Sistan-Baluchestan has had the highest number of victims among 31 provinces.

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.

Food prices continue to climb as the national currency declined by 50 percent in the past six months. According to the report of the Statistical Center of Iran (SCI), in some months, the food and beverages inflation hit 87%.