Government Is At An Impasse, Iranian Politicians Say

The Secretariat of the Assembly -- also translated as the Assembly of Experts of the Leadership or as the Council of Experts – issued a statement on Wednesday, reiterating obsequious remarks about Khamenei. 

In their statement, the members of the assembly described Khamenei as a force of “solidarity and national unity," and decried the slogans and slurs that are chanted against him during popular protests for over five months. 

Members of the Assembly are elected from the inner circle of the regime and people very close to the Khamenei, which explains their full loyalty. The assembly – which is in charge of supervising, dismissing and electing the Supreme Leader – can run for election after being vetted by the Guardian Council, whose members are, in turn, appointed either directly or indirectly by the Supreme Leader.

The Guardian Council is composed of six Islamic law experts, selected by the Supreme Leader, and six jurists, nominated by the Chief Justice, who in turn, is also appointed by the Supreme Leader. Therefore, it is a self-serving closed-circuit system that ensures all key constitutional position are occupied by loyalists.

Interestingly enough, the head of both bodies is hardliner cleric Ahmad Jannati, who turned 96 on Wednesday, a day after he was re-elected as the chairman of the Assembly of Experts for another two years. First Deputy Chairman of the assembly is President Ebrahim Raisi.

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The assembly’s statement repeatedly glorified Khamenei, claiming that the "unprecedented large volume of propaganda and insults" against him indicates that the enemy understands his important role in “guidance and management of society.” 

The statement also reiterated calls for the preservation of "hijab" -- or Islamic dress code -- as a clear message of the Islamic revolution and one of the "elements of the identity of the Islamic Republic of Iran". The current wave of protests, the boldest the regime has ever faced in the 43 years of its existence, was ignited when hijab enforcement patrols arrested Mahsa Amini violently that led to her death at hospital due to severe trauma on her head. 

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In a meeting with the chairman and some members of the Assembly of Experts in Tehran on Thursday, Khamenei said that the Islamic establishment “opposes those who believe in the Western secularism and opposes the leaders of liberal democracy, who have hatched a plot to dominate over and plunder the world’s resources behind the false flag of freedom and democracy,” he said.

According to a confidential letter obtained by Iran International in recent days, the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) has asked the government not to disclose the budget of institutions such as the Hijab police, which are criticized by the people.

The regime has heavy-handedly suppressed protesters, executing four young men, killing well over 500, including more than 70 children, and arresting around 20,000 in the past five months. 

On Monday, an estimated crowd of about 20 to 30 thousand people held a rally in Brussels outside the European Council to call on EU countries to designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist organization. Thousands of Iranians from all over Europe held a massive rally in Strasbourg in January for the same purpose. Also on Monday, the EU sanctioned 32 Islamic Republic officials, including culture and education ministers, deputy IRGC commander, and several MPs. The move can be seen as a measure to justify the fact that the EU is not yet ready to designate the entirety of the IRGC.

The editor and representative of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in Kayhan Daily, Hossein Shariatmadari also called for the prosecution of a person he called an "intelligence officer stationed at the German embassy".

Shariatmadari’s demand is reminiscent of the takeover of the US embassy by radicals in Tehran after the 1979 revolution when dozens of embassy staff were held hostage for 444 days.

This hardliner editor, who is said to be one of the interrogators of political prisoners, added that "The next step should be filing a complaint against the German government at the International Criminal Court for sending terrorists to Iran to massacre the oppressed people of the country."

Iran's judiciary sentenced Iranian-German national Jamshid Sharmahd to death on security charges February 20.

Sharmahd, who is also a US resident, is accused by Tehran of heading a pro-monarchist group blamed by the government for a deadly 2008 bombing and planning other attacks in the country.

In response, Germany declared two employees of the Iranian embassy personae non gratae and ordered them to leave the country on Wednesday.

However, Shariatmadari claimed, "Sharmahd has been tasked with carrying out terrorist operations by the German government, and the action of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs in summoning the Iranian ambassador and expelling two employees of Iran’s embassy is a type of deception operation to wipe off the traces of the German government’s involvement in this terrorist operation.”

Photos of Nadine Olivieri Lozano wearing a long black veil that covers the head and the whole body during a visit to Qom were widely published by hardliner media with headlines such as “Swiss Ambassador in Iran Wears Chador” by Hamshahri Online and “Swiss Ambassador’s Visit To Our Lady Masoumeh’s Shrine in Dazzling Hijab” by Arsheh Online.

In the photos, Lozano is seen with several clerics at the shrine and receiving a gift, a religious book, from one of the shrine’s caretakers.

These media outlets said Lozano had traveled to Qom, about 120 km to the south of Tehran, to familiarize herself with Islamic culture and art and the architecture of the shrine. Qom is Iran's second most important religious city, after Mashhad and is home to biggest and most prestigious of Iran's Shiite seminaries.

“Instead of reacting to the atrocities of the regime against women for flouting their hijab or visiting the graves of women and girls who were innocently killed, the Swiss ambassador, who is a woman herself, dons a chador and visits the Shrine of Masoumeh in Qom alongside their killers,” one of the critics, Sarbaz-e Vatan (Soldier of the Motherland), twitted with a photo showing the Swiss ambassador walking with a cleric in the courtyard of the shrine.

Mehdi Hassanpour, another critic, argued in his tweet that the Swiss ambassador’s wearing of the black veil was an insult to both Iranian and Swiss women and demanded her resignation.

Others pointed out that by visiting the shrine and wearing a chador, the Swiss ambassador had provided the “oppressors” of the Iranian women with an opportunity for good publicity at a time when Iranian women were fighting for freedom from compulsory hijab.

Federica Mogherini Former High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security in 2015.

Wearing a chador is required at Shia shrines which often provide them to women who visit. Chadors, however, do not have to be black. The black chador which the Swiss ambassador was wearing during her visit is lauded by the religious establishment as the ‘ultimate hijab’. Visiting female foreign dignitaries are also always required to wear a long headscarf but not a chador during their visit.

Hardliners and clerics of Qom often complain about women in their city not observing the hijab rules “appropriately” and demand its stricter enforcement by the authorities.

According to a commentary by the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) linked Fars news agency two years ago, the number of women who traditionally wore the black chador was dropping by the day in Qom.

Some of the top clerics in Qom and religious hardliners have repeatedly demanded from the authorities to enforce the hijab rules in their religious city more strictly and to put an end to what they believe are signs of moral depravity among its citizens.

There has been a spate of mysterious poisonings in girls’ schools in Qom since November 30. On Wednesday, three other schools in Qom were attacked and fifteen girls were hospitalized with various symptoms of poisoning.

Some officials have also said that the poisonings could be “deliberate”. In a letter to the prosecutor of Qom Public and Revolutionary Courts Monday, Prosecutor General Mohammad-Jafar Montazeri said “deliberate criminal activity” was suspected in the school poisonings.

Many say on social media that the poisonings that have affected at least 400 girls so far are the work of an extremist group that wants to force girls give up their education by acts of terror.

According to AFP, Amir-Abdollahian made the comments in his visit to Baghdad on Wednesday during talks with his Iraqi counterpart about the stalled negotiations between Tehran and Riyadh, which were held with the mediation of Baghdad.

Baghdad plays the role of a mediator in the talks between Tehran and Riyadh, which have been cut off since about seven years ago.

These negotiations started two years ago in Iraq and have been halted for more than a year now.

At a joint press conference with Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein, Amir-Abdollahian said Tehran welcomes the Iraqi government's "efforts to strengthen dialogue and cooperation between Saudi Arabia and Iran."

He also referred to a similar mediation by Baghdad in talks between Tehran and Cairo to warm their relations.

The statements by Amir-Abdollahian come while a few months ago, Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, and Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, the President of Egypt emphasized the necessity of preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

After a meeting in Cairo in June, bin Salman and Sisi stressed his support for international efforts to prevent Tehran from developing nuclear weapons and to create a zone free of weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East.

As the national currency dropped to historic lows this week, conservative lawmaker Javad Nikbin said that President Ebrahim Raisi should be accountable for the chaotic situation and the parliament should put questioning the President on its agenda. He said the Raisi and his economic team are responsible and they should not blame others or the previous government for the country's economic crisis.

Meanwhile, Kamal Hosseinpour, a lawmaker from Piranshahr, who also criticized Raisi and his government for "simply watching the situation rather than trying to solve the problem," warned that a new wave of inflation is on its way.

Hosseinpour charged that the government's economic team has given up trying to solve the country's economic crisis as the national currency is in a downward spiral, triggering higher inflation.

It is not clear why the government has not changed its inefficient economic team, he complained, and introduced new officials who would know how to tackle the problem. He added that while the government is turning a blind eye, the automobile industry’s “mafia” is increasing car prices and has an insatiable appetite for money.

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The car manufacturing industry is largely owned by the state and inefficient managers have plunged companies into debt and keep increasing car prices.

On Monday, the government banned a leading newspaper for reporting the rising price of meat in Iran and saying that government policies have deprived both the middle and working classes of meat. On Tuesday the government acknowledged a shortage of red and poultry meat.

Iranian journalist Ali Mojtahedzadeh wrote in an article in Etemad newspaper that "it is not the media's fault that prices in Iran have reached a record high under the Raisi administration." He pointed out that by banning a newspaper for reporting the problem, the government is fighting the truth. He added that last year, even before the first anniversary of Raisi’s presidency, the prosecutor of Tehran reported a more than 50 percent rise in the number of complaints made against the media by the government.

He pointed out that the media should not be punished for publishing reports that politicians do not like. The problem of rising prices is the politicians' fault, and they should be criticized by the media, he said.

In another development, prominent economist Morteza Afghah said in an interview with Didban Iran website that it is highly unlikely the government can control the markets before reaching a nuclear agreement that would lead to the lifting of US and international sanctions against Iran. Even then, he said, Iran should accept the terms of the FATF, an international financial watchdog, to facilitate international trade without causing any concern about money laundering or international terrorism.

Afghah added that rising liquidity and the government's attempts to make up for its budget deficit are the main causes of rising inflation. Referring to rial’s fall, Afghah said that some economist believe the government benefits from it by selling its foreign currencies at a higher rate.

He also pointed out that the most important problems that lead to rising prices in Iran are sanctions and Iran's international isolation. He added that because of these problems Iran is currently selling oil at a discounted price and takes huge losses to repatriate the revenue.