To Pressure Sunni Cleric, Iranian Regime Arrests Grandson

“There is a small minority who abuse their position and tarnish the image of the judiciary in the eyes of the people,” Khamenei said in a revealing meeting with judiciary officials Tuesday. 

He called on authorities to fight corruption within the judicial system and warned that "corruption is contagious". He said: "When corruption enters a system, this disease spreads. It is increasing day by day."

Khamenei said the media is partially to blame, tarnishing the judiciary's reputation further, refusing to acknowledge the heavy-handed and brutal punishments it has been handing down to civilians since the protests began in September in the wake of Mahsa Amini's death in morality police custody.

Khamenei's words contradict the fact that he controls the religious judiciary that is only accountable to him and plays the role of both prosecutor and judge. The courts in Iran are not independent, but part of the large bureaucracy known as the Judiciary, whose head is appointed by the Supreme Leader,

As “one of the main pillars in the establishment of the Islamic republic,” he said instability in the judiciary can lead to disruptions in the entire regime as he urged his inner circle to tighten up the flailing system. 

Political pundit Rouhollah Rahimpour told Iran International that the main duty of the judiciary has become defending the regime against the people and cracking down any voice of dissent. 

He called the distrust of the judiciary a natural consequence "when the judicial system does not pursue justice" and only works as a tool in the hands of the regime to stifle criticism and quash protests.

The regime used overwhelming force with military weapons in its crackdown on the protests since September, killing more than 500 civilians and arresting tens of thousands more. Hundreds of other protestors suffered hospitalization and permanent injuries, including the loss of eyes when shotgun pellets were fired at the faces of demonstrators.

After the wave of nationwide protests which has still yet to subside, the Iranian regime has embarked on a wave of executions which has seen dozens of prisoners hanged this year.

Iran's Chief Justice Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei claimed Monday that scores of Iranians only took part in protests due to foreign influence, undermining the strength of the Woman, Life, Freedom movement which has seen hundreds of thousands of Iranians calling for the end of the brutal dictatorship. 

Saeed Hajjarian, known as the most senior theoretician of reforms in Iran has said in an interview with reformist daily Etemad that “the sooner the Iranian government resigns the better.” He added that “the presence of this government and the school of thought it represents is a major loss for the nation.”

He said: “I am not suggesting that [President Ebrahim] Raisi should be replaced by a reformist figure. What I am suggesting is that the same conservatives at the Majles and in the government should sit together and think of an efficient replacement.”

Hardliners loyal to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei have pushed reformists out of the parliament (Majles) and the presidency since 2020, monopolizing all political power. However, as Iran’s economic situation has worsened partly because of US sanctions, reformists have become more vocal, demanding a chance to return to government positions.

“The Iranian opposition groups outside Iran are preoccupied with themselves. Instead of thinking of being an alternative to the current government, they are fighting with each other. On the other hand, they have been far from Iran for a long time and do not know the country’s problems, so their rhetoric sounds irrelevant,” he claimed.

While there have been disagreements among opposition activists, many in Iran still expect solutions from their compatriots who can freely engage in politics in Western countries. 

In fact, some opposition figures, such as exiled Prince Reza Pahlavi have notable following in Iran, although there are no reliable polls to judge the exact measure of his popularity. 

As a key political figure who for the first time spoke about an alternative to the current political system, Hajjarian pointed out that the only choice is “absolute republicanism” with no adjective to characterize it. 

“I believe we cannot vote for an absolute monarchy or a hereditary form of succession or an Islamic Emirate. All of these are against the international human rights charter,” he claimed, ignoring the fact that many democratic countries are constitutional monarchies. He further pointed out that a benevolent dictatorship is like a poison for Iranians.

As a regime insider, it is not surprising that the former intelligence officer spoke against monarchy at a time when many Iranians look back with nostalgia to the pre-1979 period under the Pahlavi dynasty. 

Hajjarian also failed to mention that the Islamic Republic is based on the unquestionable rule of a cleric, the Supreme Leader. Also, the republicanism he is advocating is impossible to establish within the current Islamic constitution, which reserves the final say to the Supreme Leader.

In another part of the interview, Hajjarian characterized the government of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as “rich populism” and described the Raisi administration as a populist government that does not have money. 

He said some of the outstanding problems in Iran such as the crisis of the pension fund and discrimination against women can create a political tremor and the government knows that it is incapable of coping with them. 

Hajjarian said that borderlines between reformism and other political groups are blurred and most of those known as reformists are pseudo-reformists who are simply trying to find a way out of the current impasse. 

Nevertheless, he argued that reformists are the only group with a plan, while critics say that they were in power for 16 years in the past 26 years and were not able to change the nature of the regime.

The former intelligence officer said Iran is in a state of suspension. If the situation worsens and the economic pressures become unbearable, Iran might show more flexibility toward the West.

Hossein Jalali made the claim on Tuesday while lawmakers are supposed to represent the people and not to be under the thumb of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Jalali’s statement is not news to most Iranians who over the years have witnessed numerous times how the legislature follows directives from Khamenei’s office on key issues.

The member of the cultural commission of the parliament further defended the performance of the 11th Islamic parliament saying although there were some mistakes, the overall performance of the current Iranian legislature was acceptable.

In recent months many commentators in Iran have slammed the hardliner-dominated parliament for being ineffective both in terms of legislation to help the economy and also for being weak in demanding accountability from the government.

Last month, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei praised the country’s “revolutionary parliament” for passing a bill in 2020 that complicated nuclear negotiations.

“From the beginning of this parliament [2020], based on information I had, I believed that it is a revolutionary parliament, and now after three years I reiterate that,” Khamenei told 290 members of the legislature.

The current parliament was elected in February 2020 in a controversial vote when the Guardian Council, loyal to Khamenei, banned hundreds of relatively moderate candidates and allowed hardliners to gain a strong majority in the legislature.

The Student Union Council of Iran said on its Telegram channel that the university's security officers "repeatedly disrupted order" by taking photos of students and enforcing strict hijab rules.

A warning was also issued saying that their answer sheets would be withheld if they failed to comply, the report added.

Metal detectors were used by security forces to search both male and female students and those with metallic objects, including belts, were not allowed to enter exam rooms.

In recent months, security and intelligence organisations have increased pressure on students for hijab amidst a nationwide hijab rebellion in universities across the country, leading to the suspension of possibly hundreds of students.

Last week, students across the country and various social and political groups expressed solidarity with the students at University of Art in Tehran who have been staging protests against stricter hijab.

University of Art students have been protesting new rules that require women to wear a pullover headscarf with stitched front (called Maghna’e in Iran) which is like a nun’s coif, completely covering the head and the neck. Failing to comply, the university has said, would result in suspension.

Anti-hijab and anti-regime protests erupted in Iran in September after Mahsa Amini, a young woman arrested in the street by the notorious ‘morality police’ and received fatal head injuries during her detention, died in hospital.

Former Iranian diplomat and scholar Kourosh Ahmadi wrote in an article last week that “If the 2015 nuclear deal [JCPOA] has lost its non-proliferation value…the objective should be improving it” instead of aiming for an interim and limited deal “that cannot last more than one or two years.” 

Ahmadi called a possible interim deal a temporary fix that cannot overcome the chronic instability that disrupts and hinders Iran’s economic progress. Do we want just to patch things up for a short period of time, he asked, or put the country on the road to progress. 

Referring to media reports about “a new wave of negotiations between Iran and the United States over an “understanding” or “a verbal agreement,” Etemad Online website pointed out in an analysis that Iranian officials have not provided any information about such an agreement, although they have confirmed that negotiations have taken place in Muscat, New York and Doha. US officials have also made minimal statements about the talks to swap prisoners and release Iran’s assets in Iraq but ruled out any talks over the JCPOA.

According to Etemad Online, it appears that Iran and the United States have reached an understanding about “stabilizing the current situation” and about some kind of “political cease-fire.” This will prevent crises at the points of contact, such as in Syria and the Persian Gulf. Etemad added that Iran on the other hand might be aiming for a détente with the United States alongside the rapprochement with Saudi Arabia, which can give Tehran access to its hard currency funds frozen abroad.

Etemad Online also opined that restored relations with Saudi Arabia can help Tehran achieve an agreement or an understanding with Washington. Based on the new deal Iran might agree not to enrich Uranium beyond 60 percent and stop installing new modern centrifuges while also promising to boost its cooperation with the IAEA, Etemad Online said, based on reports in Western media.

Also on the agenda of the negotiations are Iran’s cooperation with Russia in the war against Ukraine and the attacks on the US forces by Iran’s proxy groups in Iraq and Syria. The United States, on the other hand, will promise not to intensify the sanctions and instead, release more of Iran’s frozen assets abroad and facilitate Iran’s oil sales.

According to Nameh News website, Kambiz Mehdizadeh, an aide and son-in-law of former President Hassan Rouhani wrote in a tweet about the possibility of talks between Iran and the US: “An interim agreement or whatever you might call it is like a painkiller pill that can alleviate the symptoms of a cold. It can stop a runny nose, but it cannot help us to bring in foreign investments or help us purchase aircraft.”

On social media, Afifeh Abdi, an Iranian journalist and a foreign policy researcher, wrote in a June 22 tweet: “The ongoing negotiations over the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) are being furthered not because of the skill of Iran’s current negotiating team, but because of the strong US motivation to buy time and to keep Iran away from Russia and China. For the United States, these negotiations mean giving small concessions for strategic achievements!” Ms. Abdi added: “But what can Iran do? Iran has limited choices.” 

In a comment under the post, a Twitter user wrote: “When Iran refuses to bring about essential economic reforms because its officials benefit from the ongoing corruption, and refuses to grant social liberties to the people, then the officials run the country on a day-to-day basis and try to get hold of hard currency to temporarily control the markets. Later, the United States will break its promises and the exchange rates will jump like a spring.”