Iran International
The “temporary” removal of an anchor of Iran’s Ofogh TV for threatening the Republic of Azerbaijan with annexation has sparked nationalistic debates and heated disputes among Iranian netizens.
“There are some people who will become delusional if you don’t object to their claims …They had made such claims about [the Iranian provinces of] Azarbaijan before,” Hossein Hosseini said before a video regarding Azerbaijan’s relations with Israel was shown in a program called “Palestinian Horizons” on September 10.
Hosseini was referring to an Azerbaijani TV presenter’s suggestion of annexation of the whole of Iran rather than only parts that share a linguistic heritage with the Republic of Azerbaijan. “Let me tell you if you didn’t know … [The whole of] Iran is Azerbaijan,” the Azerbaijani anchor had said.
Hosseini went on to threaten that the Islamic Republic’s state television would soon be reporting the weather forecast for “northern Azarbaijan” if Iran decided to do so, implying annexation of the Republic of Azerbaijan, a territory belonging to Iran before the Russian Empire moved south into the Caucasus in the early 19th century and forced Iran to retreat.
He also shared a video clip of his remarks on Instagram, eliciting praise from his followers who called him a “real patriot”. Similar views were abundant on X. Some among Turkic-speaking Iranians who harbor strong anti-Armenian sentiments and are mostly concentrated in northwestern provinces disagreed.
“An [anchor] who presents [a program dedicated to the] Armenian Horizon instead of Palestinian Horizon, invites a famous Armenian lobbyist, insults the Shia population of a friendly and brotherly country, and speaks about annexing an independent country must be removed,” a netizen with a username suggesting he is a Turki speaker, the Turkic language spoken in Iran's northwestern regions and some other areas, posted on X.
In a tweet Saturday, journalist Vahid Khatami, claimed Iran's state television has decided to remove Hosseini from the program. The program was presented by another anchor last Saturday who said Hosseini would return to the program “after a short break”.
Amid the recent rhetorical rows between the Islamic Republic and Azerbaijan over Zangezur Corridor, the footage of the Azerbaijani anchor’s statements has angered many Iranian netizens who believe such claims are part of a much larger ‘Pan-Turkic plot’ to separate Iran's Turkic-speaking territories and form a Turkic empire extending from Turkey to Central Asia.
Baku has been demanding a corridor through southern Armenia to connect Azerbaijan to its Nakhchivan enclave separated by Armenian territory which Iran has always opposed, arguing that it will eliminate Iran's direct access to Armenia, if the corridor is not controlled by Yerevan.
Moscow and Baku want Russia to monitor and control the corridor which can serve as a significant route for trade and energy transport between Asia and Europe, but Yerevan and Tehran are opposed to such a scheme and argue that even if a transport route were to be established, Armenia should have control over it.
The recently appointed Friday Imam of Tabriz, the capital of Iran's East Azarbaijan Province, has also commented on the Azerbaijani anchor’s remarks.
“Baku should stop the divisive remarks of idiots and hypocrites in its media. The stories they tell with slogans about a united Azarbaijan have far-reaching consequences. It will be to their own detriment if these stories begin to be told, not us. Laying claim to places [in the Iranian territory” is to your own detriment,” he said during Friday’s sermon.
Iran under the Qajar dynasty lost much of its territory in the north of the river Aras, including the present Azerbaijani territory then known as Aran, to the Russian Empire in the 19th century after long wars by signing the treaties of Golestan (1813) and Torkmanchay (1828) which many Iranians still refer to as “shameful”.
The Republic of Azerbaijan is often referred to as “northern Azarbaijan” by Iranian ultra-nationalists in the same way that ‘Pan-Turks’ on both sides of the Iran-Azerbaijan border refer to Iran's East and West Azarbaijan, and Ardabil provinces as “southern Azerbaijan”.
Ali Nikbakht, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Iran Power Plants Association, reported this summer's electricity shortage at 19 to 20 GW. He warned that if immediate action isn't taken, the deficit could reach 26 GW next year. Similar concerns were echoed by Hamidreza Salehi, Chairman of the Federation of Energy Exports and Associated Industries, and Hassan Ali Taghizadeh, Chairman of the Electricity Syndicate.
All three officials agreed that not only is it unrealistic to resolve the electricity deficit in the short term, but there is little hope of even sustaining the current level of imbalance.
Aging power plants
Nikbakht also emphasized the aging and deterioration of a significant portion of the country's power plant capacity. He pointed out that one major power plant has already halted operations for repairs, stating, “The spare parts for this plant should have been ordered two years ago, but that didn’t happen, exacerbating the electricity shortage.”
He further explained that while the total nominal capacity of Iran's power plants is over 92 GW, much of it is outdated. “Of the 15 GW nominal capacity of steam power plants, about 12 GW are over 30 years old. In the case of gas power plants, 2.7 GW have also exceeded 30 years of age,” he said.
As a result, 80% of steam power plants and 11% of gas power plants are effectively outdated. These low-efficiency thermal plants account for 43% of the country's nominal power plant capacity.
This aging infrastructure, combined with a steep drop in hydropower generation due to drought, has significantly reduced Iran's actual power production. Despite having around 93.3 GW of installed nominal capacity, the country's real power generation is only about 61 GW, meaning that 30% of Iran's power generation capacity is currently offline.
Growing electricity deficit
Iran should have increased its power production by at least 7% annually for over a decade to meet the growing demand. However, the last time this goal was achieved was in 2010. Since then, the country's electricity consumption has grown at twice the rate of its production. As a result, Iran, which had a net export of 8 terawatt-hours of electricity annually until the mid-2010s, is now facing a massive power shortage.
The issue is that Iran now faces electricity deficits year-round, not just during the summer. Since last spring, the Ministry of Energy has stopped releasing its monthly statistics. However, a report obtained by Iran International earlier this summer revealed that even in the final month of spring, the country faced a 5 GW deficit during peak nighttime hours and a 10 GW shortfall during peak daytime hours.
This deficit surged to 20 GW during this summer's peak demand and is projected to reach 26 GW by next summer. To put this into perspective, this deficit is 1.5 times the total electricity generation of Iran’s northern neighbors—Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Turkmenistan—all of whom export electricity to Iran.
With such a vast imbalance between supply and demand, coupled with ongoing annual growth in consumption, it’s unlikely that Iran will resolve this shortage within the next decade, even if it triples its investment in the power sector. The country needs $20 billion in investment just to cover the current electricity deficit, plus at least $4 billion annually to support the 7% growth in power production needed to meet rising demand.
The primary driver behind Iran’s increasing electricity consumption is the addition of about one million new subscribers to the grid each year, with three-quarters being residential consumers and the remainder from industry, agriculture, and commercial sectors.
Moreover, hundreds of millions of dollars are required annually for the maintenance and repair of aging power plants. Nikbakht noted that the annual maintenance cost for each power plant is approximately $3 million.
A critical concern is the government’s growing debt to private power plant owners, which has quadrupled over the past three years. By the beginning of this year, it surpassed 900 trillion rials ($1.5 billion based on the open market exchange rate or $2.1 billion at the official rate). This mounting debt makes it unlikely that the private sector will continue to invest in the power industry.
Government Deflection
Hassan Ali Taghizadeh, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Electricity Syndicate, recently warned, "With the current approach, we will face a 25 GW electricity imbalance next year." He also criticized Iranian authorities for blaming the public for excessive electricity consumption, pointing out that the average household consumption in Iran is not only below the global average but nearly half of that in Europe. "Why accuse people of being wasteful? Don’t blame the public for the electricity imbalance."
Statistics reveal that the average household electricity consumption per capita in Iran is under 1,200 kilowatt-hours, compared to about 1,800 kilowatt-hours in the European Union. In countries like the United States and the Arab Gulf states, consumption is several times higher than in Iran.
Blaming the public becomes even more misplaced when considering that 13% of Iran’s electricity is lost in its outdated transmission and distribution network, which the government has neglected to modernize for two decades. This loss is equivalent to 40% of the country’s household electricity consumption, translating into a staggering $4 to $5 billion annual loss at current regional electricity prices.
Additionally, over the past decade, Iran has failed to convert its low-efficiency steam and gas power plants into combined-cycle plants, which boast a 45% efficiency rate. Currently, combined-cycle plants account for just 39% of Iran’s nominal power generation capacity, while low-efficiency steam and gas plants together still make up 43%.
Meanwhile, the share of nuclear and renewable energy in Iran’s power generation capacity remains just 1% each, with the remainder made up by hydropower plants.
A video emerged in January showing two employees at a facility in Karaj violently assaulting a child laborer before forcibly dragging him into their vehicle.
The head of the facility and a security guard were detained, Iran's Welfare Organization, a government body said on Thursday.
"A child named Maroof, a resident foreign national, attempted to escape with a serrated knife after being locked outside a small gate while staff were tending to the yard," the organization said in a statement.
"Upon his return to the facility, security personnel sought to retrieve the knife, but the child was beaten during his attempt to flee again," it added in a statement.
Eight children were transferred to another facility, Iran's domestic media reported following the center's closure.
Iran's Welfare Organization hosts orphans and disadvantaged children, many of whom beg and work menial jobs, at centers throughout the country.
The abuse of child laborers in Iran has been a persistent rights issue in recent years as standards of living have dropped and migrant numbers have increased.
The incident followed a similar incident in November 2020, when another online video appeared to show a man coercing two child laborers working as fortune tellers to dance and expose themselves in exchange for money.
Reliable official statistics on the total number of child laborers in Iran remain elusive.
The latest official estimate on the total number of child laborers stood at around three million according to Reza Shafakhah, secretary of the children's rights committee of the human rights working group of the National Union of Bar Associations.
This figure contrasts with an earlier report from late April, in which Mohammadreza Heydarhaei, head of the Office for Social Victims at the Welfare Organization of Iran, cited the presence of 120,000 child laborers across the country.
A 2023 report indicated that 15% of the child population was engaged in labor, with at least 10% of these working children lacking access to education, depriving them of essential learning opportunities.
The primary factor driving the rise in child labor is widely attributed to "household poverty," which compels children to work in order to support their families' financial needs.
The report emphasizes that child labor is both prohibited and criminalized under international and domestic laws, placing a clear obligation on the government to take action to address the issue.
Effective monitoring and prevention of child labor remain difficult, especially in cases involving domestic work, labor in hazardous or unsupervised areas, crime such as drug trafficking, and the sexual exploitation of children.
One of the country's largest independent anti-poverty organizations reported in October 2022 that many minors were recruited to attack protesters during nationwide protests in exchange for basic food supplies.
Members and supporters of Imam Ali's Popular Student Relief Society (IAPSRS), a charity organization, alleged that authorities employed children as part of their efforts to suppress anti-government demonstrations.