Sunni Leader In Iran Says People's Wish For A Secular Government Must Be Met

Three members of the group, Prince Reza Pahlavi, Masih Alinejad and Nazanin Boniadi are participating in the Munich Security Conference, while Iranian officials have not been invited.

On the sidelines of the conference Emmanuel Macron had a friendly encounter with women’s rights activist Masih Alinejad, one of the eight dissident figures. 

During the short conversation, a video of which was published in Alinejad’s twitter account, Macron said that “I want to congratulate you and all the members of the coalition for joining and teaming up nicely to support.”

“To us and the civil society, what's happening in Iran is very important. And I'd be very happy to meet all of you, altogether because this message of unity is important,” he added. 

Alinejad told Macron that leaders of leading countries are calling the current wave of antigovernment protests across Iran “a revolution,” adding that “France is all about revolution, and you're going to be the voice of Iranian women.”

Also on the sidelines of the first day of the Munich Security Conference, Prince Reza Pahlavi told reporters that “I think when you have a true democratic system, every demand or expectations that people living in that country will have would have to be addressed by the rule of law and guarantee of freedom and equality, and no discrimination of any form.”

He added, “I hope our Constitution in the future will be based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which by default would immediately address so many expectations and of course many more that we could address based on our alliance and work today on a Charter and hopefully build that into the equation in the future.” 

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The organizers of the annual forum, which draws together senior foreign and defense officials, have not invited the Iranian government to this year’s event, citing “the current political situation” in the country. Many Iranians residing in the city also held a gathering outside the venue of the event on Friday supporting the three leading figures at the conference. Protesters in Iran and opponents abroad see the decision to invite dissident leaders as a big victory for the protest movement that began in September after Mahsa Amini was killed in ‘hijab police’ custody. 

During the three-day event, a panel will be held on Saturday titled “Woman, Life, Freedom: Visions for Iran,” in which Alinejad, Pahlavi and actress and activist Boniadi will participate. US Senator Robert Menendez, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and Member of European Parliament Hannah Neumann are also among the panel. Suzanne Maloney from The Brookings Institution and Karim Sadjadpour from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace will be the moderators of the event. 

Since a historic forum in Washington was held earlier this month with four of the eight opposition figures in attendance, and four others sending video messages, the dissident activists have been participating in events around the world to make the voice of the Iranian opposition heard. Such events signal the emergence of a leadership council in the diaspora to campaign for international support in favor of Iran’s protest movement.

Alinejad and Canada-based activist Hamed Esmaeilion, whose daughter and wife were killed in the shooting down of Flight PS752 downed by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard in 2020, are also scheduled to deliver speeches at the Italian Senate about the current wave of the protests in Iran. They are also set to attend a gathering against the Islamic Republic in the capital Rome the following day.

Last year, Sunni Baluch community leaders and people in southeast Iran had accused Ebrahim Kucheckzaei of sexual assault while he was commander of police in Chabahar port city on the Sea of Oman, near Pakistan.

Public anger over the incident contributed to a protest on September 30 in the city of Zahedan when security forces opened fire and killed more than 90 residents. Coupled with anti-regime popular protests, the people of Zahedan have held demonstrations every Friday since the massacre and their religious leader, Mowlana Abdolhamid has become a fierce critic of the Islamic Republic.

Tehran media said that a military court after hearing from “the plaintiff and the family” and examining evidence convicted Kuchakzaei of “some infringements” including actions that discredited the police and filing a false report. They did not mention the alleged sexual assault.

The arrest and conviction of the police commander can be seen as another attempt by the regime to mollify public anger, as five months of protests continue and Western countries impose sanctions on the regime for its human rights violations.

The government has been releasing some political prisoners after a conditional amnesty was announced recently, while still arresting and punishing others for their role in protests or for criticizing the regime.

Mohsen Goudarzi and Abdolmohammad Kazemipour told Shargh newspaper: "We reviewed the data for several decades and we found out that with the decline of trust between the people and the government corruption will rise and the rule of law will take a downturn."

Goudarzi maintained that all this will lead to the government's inefficiency and more corruption which will in turn, further damage the people's trust in the government and other institutions.

He argued that this vicious circle will continue, and as the situation worsens, this is not something citizens can tolerate forever. When the people feel that there is no hope for change and no institutionalized way to bring about change, they will take to the streets.

As long as corruption and inefficiency and other shortcomings persist and cause dissatisfaction, and there is no institutionalized outlet for expressing dissent, protests are always probable.

Goudarzi explained that the government, the economy, and social structures are the main ingredients of a coherent society, but many political elites believe that after politics, the economy plays the most important part in the society. In several periods before and after the 1979 revolution, and even before the revolution, Iranian politicians have asked themselves whether economic development should come before political development or vice versa.

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A 1969 document called "The Principles of Cultural Policy" and several other studies in the mid-70s about the future of Iran have all considered social crisis as the core problem for Iran. At that time, they referred to it as a cultural crisis. In the 1970s, sociologists believed that Iran's problem was that economic growth was prioritized over cultural and political growth.

The social scientists of the 1970s believed that a fast-paced economic change had altered the material aspects of the people's life. With the transition from traditional agricultural economy to modern industrial economy, large parts of the population migrated from the villages to the margins of urban areas, where they found themselves in an environment with different ideals and values.

Social scientists believed that the newcomers to the cities found themselves alien to the new environment. In order to escape the anxiety of this dislocation, they took refuge in the safe haven of traditions, particularly in religion, Goudarzi added. The transforming society pursued material values and looked forward to a modern future, but at the same time, people did not tolerate the resulting cultural changes.

Yet another problem was that while economic growth was creating a well-off middle class, doors to political participation remained closed. Sociologists Majid Tehranian, Ali Assadi and Hormoz Mehrdad in 1970s believed that focusing on the economy and ignoring its social and political implications by the Iranian government was the root cause of tensions. They believed that in that situation the society was not able to remain stable.

Time proved them right in a matter of only a few years. Since then, sociologists made sure that focusing on the economy without paying attention to people's political and social needs will lead to catastrophe. ‌But ruling politicians in Iran, both then and now, thought that political participation could be relegated to the background. In their book, "What happened? The story of decline of Iranian society," Mohsen Goudarzi and Abdolmohammad Kazemipour have challenged this view. We have laid emphasis on the idea of balance, said Goudarzi.

Zeynab Kazempour removed her headscarf on Friday during the annual assembly of Tehran Construction Engineering Organization after the board of directors did not allow her to run as a candidate for the board. 

She then made a short statement on the stage, saying that "I don't recognize the assembly that doesn't allow candidates to run because they don't wear a headscarf." The participants of the meeting were applauding her as she threw away her scarf before leaving the stage. 

Sharing the video on social media, some users have emphasized that conditions in the country will not never return to the period before before the nationwide uprising and the government cannot force the hijab on women anymore.

Since the current wave of protests ignited across Iran following the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, many Iranian women took off their headscarves in public and even set fire to some headscarves as a sign of opposition to the mandatory hijab.

Earlier in the week, some members of the National Library of Iran protested the suspension of several female members for not complying with the "mandatory hijab".

The conference, which has not invited officials from Russia and the Islamic Republic of Iran this year, starts Friday and concludes February 19. Many Iranians residing in the city also held a gathering outside the venue of the event on Friday to support the dissident figures. 

The organizers of the annual forum, which draws together senior foreign and defense officials, have not invited the Iranian government to this year’s event, citing “the current political situation” in the country.

Protesters in Iran and opponents abroad see the decision to invite dissident leaders as a big victory for the protest movement that began in September after Mahsa Amini was killed in ‘hijab police’ custody.

Since a historic forum in Washington was held with eight prominent opposition figures in attendance, the dissident activists have been participating in events around the world to make the voice of the Iranian opposition heard. Such events signal the emergence of a leadership council in the diaspora to campaign for international support in favor of Iran’s protest movement. 

Alinejad and Canada-based activist Hamed Esmaeilion, whose daughter and wife were killed in the shooting down of Flight PS752 downed by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard in 2020, are also scheduled to deliver speeches at the Italian Senate about the current wave of the protests in Iran. They are also set to attend a gathering against the Islamic Republic in the capital Rome the following day. 

In December, the Italian Senate’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee unanimously approved a resolution urging Tehran to respect women’s rights and stop its crackdown on peaceful protesters.