No Need For Referendum When Results Are Obvious – Sunni Leader

Sekhavat Asadi, the general manager of special Pars energy region on the Persian Gulf, including many natural gas and petrochemical operation told the official government IRNA news agency that striking workers “will be replaced by 4,000 new workers.” He added that the process already started on Thursday.

Workers in more than 80 companies, including steel workers, across the country joined industrial action, protesting poor working conditions, low wages and rising costs of living, the Council for Organizing Oil Contract-Workers' Protests said April 25.

In recent years, as the Iranian National Oil Company has ceded many operations to quasi-private companies, most of the work is done by temporary contract workers with little pay and no benefits.

The so-called private companies are controlled by military or other state entities, or by well-connected regime insiders who quash labor demands by using government security forces.

Asadi claimed that the strikes are being organized by anti-regime groups, a charge the Islamic Republic often makes to de-legitimize the demands of the workers who earn less than $200 a month.

At the same time he also claimed that “We had no strikes and protests in the petrochemical and gas sectors in recent days and all plants are working with full capacity.”

However, various reports by local media and labor groups indicate widespread strikes in the region.

Workers are demanding a 79-percent pay increase, on-time payment of wages and living amenities.

Mohammad Mohajeri, a conservative himself and former editor of hard-line daily Kayhan, has said in an interview that conservatives believe the current government has left such a bad record that its opponents are highly likely to win the next parliamentary and presidential elections.

"However, their fear may be baseless as the supporter of reformists and a large part of Iranian voters are not willing to take part in the elections," Mohajeri said, adding that nonetheless, conservatives will continue their smear campaign against relative moderates such as former President Hassan Rouhani, former Majles Speakers Ali Larijani and Ali Akbar Nateq Nouri.

Meanwhile, Mohajeri said in another interview that Iran's reformists and conservatives have influence only among 15 to 20 percent of the society. He also charged that 90 percent of Iran's Friday Prayer Imams belong to the conservative camp and the Friday Prayers are a podium for only one political faction.

However, a national reconciliation is possible in Iran only if the government facilitates the political participation of all political groups in the elections. He added that there is not much time for that as fierce campaigning for the parliamentary elections will start in around two months from now.

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He suggested that to facilitate political participation, the government needs to bring about essential changes in economic, political and cultural arenas. He argued that the government's inability to improve the economy will keep deeply disillusioned voters away from the ballot box.

Many people are also currently annoyed by the government's unilateralism. Enforcing compulsory hijab and filtering the Internet have deeply annoyed the people so that they are reluctant to take part in political activities such as voting in the elections.

However, Mohajeri said in the interview that some ultraconservatives including those around the housing minister Mehrdad Bazrpash have already started their campaign.

Mohajeri warned that if the government does anything beyond what has been stipulated in the Constitutional Law, the people will feel their essential rights have been undermined.

Many protesters during the past months chanted slogans against Iran's rigid Constitution which gives every right to hardliner clerics to restrict the freedom of the populace.

Meanwhile, he lashed out at the government's heavy-handed approach against unveiled women and said that it was quite clear from the start that policies such as launching a morality police would face resistance by women.

Agreeing with Mohajeri on the situation of the current government, Sharyar Heidari, a member of parliament told Rouydad24 website in Tehran that in the next election Raisi is not likely to win a quarter of the votes he received in 2021.

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In another development, Iranian sociologist Nematollah Fazeli said in an interview with Khabar Online that the government does not have a true understanding of the people's demands. Fazeli said the government would have been at ease to accept some of the demands of the people if they were simply about the economy. But the people's understanding of politics and the gender issue has changed over the years and the government cannot understand that.

"Women had a focal position in the recent movement in Iran although there were other activists too. This is caused by a major development in social knowledge in Iran," he said, which “emanates from within the society and its everyday life and the people's collective experience."

Fazeli added that the understanding what happened in Iran during the past months requires a thorough understanding of women's role, but little attention has been paid to this matter by any government entity. This requires a new look at women and femininity, an issue that has been marginalized after the 1979 Islamic revolution, the sociologist said.

Iran’s exiled prince Reza Pahlavi, who is on a visit to Italy to galvanize support for the Iranian uprising, visited the Vatican on the second day of his stay on Thursday. 

Earlier in the day, Pahlavi and his wife Yasmine also held a friendly meeting with a group of Iranians residing in Italy before taking a few minutes of their time to meet Elaheh Tavakolian, a PhD student who lost one of her eyes to shotgun pellets fired at protesters by the Islamic Republic’s security forces. She is in Italy to receive treatment for her eye.

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Wherever the Pahlavis went during their first two days in Italy, they were welcomed by a large Iranian crowd who had gathered to meet the prince. The moment he arrived at the Italian parliament, he was greeted by Iranians who were chanting slogans in support of “King Reza Pahlavi,” saying that they would bring him back to Iran. 

There, he spoke to people about their role in supporting the protests, calling on them to be the voice of the people who are suffering under the regime and do not enjoy the freedom and access to the free world to make their voices heard. “You are the voice of the future,” he told the crowd. 

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Your unison and unanimity not only invigorate our compatriots inside the country -- the ones in the Evin prison, or the ones who have lost their eyesight to regime’s bullets, or the schoolgirls who are attacked by chemical gas – but also result in the world hearing your voice,” he said. 

Pahlavi highlighted that the world countries have realized that they should not limit their interactions to the regime, which does not represent the Iranian people. "If I have come here today to talk to the representatives of the governments, it is to make your voice heard and to say that investing in the people of Iran means guaranteeing democracy and freedom in the future and ending the threats of the Islamic Republic," he said. 

During the meeting with the Iranian expatriates Thursday, Pahlavi talked about the transition to the future Iran free of the Islamic Republic, noting that after the collapse of the regime something similar to the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission would be needed to deal with the crimes committed by regime officials. The commision was established by the new South African government in 1995 to help heal the country and bring about a reconciliation of its people by uncovering the truth about human rights violations that had occurred during the period of apartheid.

On Wednesday, Pahlavi also held a meeting with Senator Stefania Craxi, a member of the Chamber of Deputies, where he also held a presser following his talks with several other Italian parliamentarians.

During the Wednesday press conference, the leading opposition figure reiterated his call on world countries to support the uprising of the Iranians, saying, “We all recognize that sanctions are perhaps to some great extent able to weaken such regimes and limit their means to repress their own citizenry... it is of course necessary but not sufficient because at some point there has to be an element of direct support to the citizens.”

He went on to emphasize that it is of great importance for the people of Iran, especially the victims of the regime, to see and feel “that they are not alone, and the world has finally heard their voice and are taking actual measures to support them and further punish the regime.” 

“My political mission in life is to see to a transition,” he said, highlighting that “at the end of the day it's the Iranian people who make the final decision for their future.” He added, “for me that mission ends the day that the Constitutional project is offered to the nation by the Constitutional assembly and ratified by means of a referendum which will then establish the future system in Iran.” 

Since the beginning of the "Women, Life, Freedom" movement, ignited by the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in September 2022, well-known figures of the Iranian opposition, such as Pahlavi, have been holding meetings with the government and parliamentary officials of Western countries hoping to further isolate the Islamic Republic in the global community and ensure support for the Iranians. 

While searching his house the security agents also seized his telephone and laptop.

Momeni is one of over 400 civil and political activists who, in a statement had said that the only violence-free and democratic solution for transitioning from the Islamic Republic is "appeal to the nation's votes by holding a free referendum.”

The detention of Momeni is part of a recent wave of arrests of political and civil activists, including Qorban Behzadianejad, Keyvan Samimi and Alireza Beheshti Shirazi.

The charges against these people have not been announced yet, but it seems they were arrested after participating in the "Dialogue to Save Iran" conference.

Over 40 political, social and human rights activists from inside and outside Iran for the first time attended a virtual conference called “Dialog To Save Iran” on Friday.

The meeting, which was held on Club House social media platform, also heard from eight detained activists who sent messages from inside prisons in Iran.

In his message, Keyvan Samimi, a journalist and political activist, who was rearrested last week, said Iranians everywhere should form a united national front to get rid of oppression.

Imprisoned human rights activist Narges Mohammadi also said in a message that “To save Iran, we must end the tyrannical, anti-woman regime and make a peaceful and low-cost transition for the people.”

Reformist Shargh daily in a report Thursday said statements by the police and other officials about the implementation of a campaign against hijab-lessness indicate that around 2,000 businesses – including restaurants, cafes, tourist accommodations, retail shops and even a counseling clinic and a gym -- have suffered closure in the past month only. 

On Tuesday hardline media reported that some businesses, mainly restaurants and cafes, owned by celebrity artists and popular footballers have been shut down or received warnings over defiance of hijab rules by their staff and customers.

Authorities also announced on the same day that they had shut down Opal Mall, a massive modern shopping center with over 450 businesses in Tehran. Shargh said the closure of the mall alone has resulted in the loss of around 2,500 jobs.

Woman has a seizure at a shopping arcade in northern Iran after hijab enforcers fire their guns during a scuffle with business owners.

At the start of the month, Iran’s 83-year-old ruler Ali Khamenei reiterated the regime's stance on hijab, which became mandatory after the establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979. He said: “Discarding hijab is haram (sinful) based on Sharia and also politically."

His declaration was a clear signal to all state and religious authorities to do anything it takes to re-establish control over women who are increasingly joining the civil disobedience movement against forced hijab rules.

However, legal experts say closure of businesses is unjustified even based on the Islamic Republic’s own laws and the Sharia.

“Has anyone ever heard of a street being banned because of a murder that happened there? Or is it possible to shut down a government office because of corruption? … Businesses cannot be sealed because someone removes their hijab there,” Mohammad Mansouri-Boroujeni, a professor of law at Esfahan University wrote in a commentary on April 20.

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Mohsen Borhani, an Islamic law expert and lawyer, argued in a tweet that nowhere in Sharia one can find reasons to justify the ban on selling commodities to hijab-less women or to shut down a shop if a hijab-less woman is spotted there. “You neither abide by the law, nor the Sharia. It’s flustering!” he tweeted April 18.

The police have also said they are prosecuting those who promote defiance of the compulsory hijab on social media and have warned hundreds of imminent prosecutions, placed hundreds of “hijab promoters” on the streets to warn women, and banned entrance of unveiled women to museums and other public venues.

Hijab banner in Tehran says it is mothers’ legacy for their daughters.

Tehran municipality has recently put up hundreds of banners on the streets to promote the hijab. “Hijab is the legacy of mothers,” one such banner which shows a mother donning a black veil on a very young girl says while another equates opposition to the compulsory hijab to destroying “the foundations of families.”

“My mother did not wear the hijab. Neither did my grandmother. I’d like to adhere to my own heritage,” a woman said in a video of one of the hijab banners she sent to Iran International.

In a tweet with a photo of the woman who protested the compulsory hijab, another woman said fighting against the compulsory hijab was “mothers’ legacy”

The recent campaign to enforce hijab rules has caused some violent incidents involving pro-hijab vigilantes and women who defy it. A 60-year-old woman had a cardiac arrest this week when a fight broke out between vigilantes and members of her family over hijab.

A member of the family of Kolsum Oftadehpour told Iran International TV that there was no autopsy and authorities did not allow them to see the body before and during the burial which they carried out without the family’s involvement. The family have been threatened not to talk, he said.