Spotlight on Iran
Spotlight on Iran
Spotlight on Iran
Spotlight on Iran
Masha’i, Ahmadinejad, Rahimi
Intelligence Minister Moslehi speaking at a conference on the achievements of Iranian expatriates
More Tehran residents use public transportation as gas prices increase
House survives earthquake thanks to Ahmadinejad’s photograph
Majles Foreign Policy and National Security Committee pays tribute to dismissed foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki
Majles Foreign Policy and National Security Committee pays tribute to dismissed foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki
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Highlights of the week
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Trouble in president’s office: office chief provokes outrage once again; first vice president implicated in criminal activity
Ahmadinejad’s office chief Esfandiar Rahim Masha’i provoked another outrage this week after making two controversial remarks recently. Speaking at an artists’ convention held in the city of Arak in early December, Masha’i said that some clerics did not understand music and therefore claimed that it was forbidden in Islamic religious law.
In another remark, Masha’i recently claimed that the prophet of the Muslims was Iranian. His claim was based on the alleged linguistic connection between the names Cyrus (the king known in Iran as Kurosh) and Quraysh, Prophet Muhammad’s tribe, associated in traditional Arab genealogy with Qadr bin Isma’il bin Ibrahim.
Masha’i’s remarks provoked strong reactions from top conservative clerics. In response to his statements with regard to clerics’ view of music, Ayatollah Nasser Makarem Shirazi said that his words were an offense to clerics. According to the ayatollah, senior clerics agree that light-hearted music is forbidden in Islamic religious law, a view shared by Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader of the Islamic revolution (www.makaremshirazi.org, December 22). Ayatollah Ha’eri Shirazi, a member of the Assembly of Experts and the Supreme Leader’s representative in Fars Province, also criticized Masha’i’s remarks. In a letter he sent to the president’s office chief, Shirazi said that the beauty of music had nothing to do with its legal status in Islamic religious law. Not all that is beautiful is allowed under the shari’ah, the conservative cleric wrote (Shi’ah Online, December 27).
In response to Masha’i’s statement that the Prophet was Iranian, Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi said that the claim was indicative of ignorance, since King Cyrus was not in any way related to the Quraysh tribe. Consequently, Masha’i hurriedly issued a clarification saying that he had meant Ibrahim (i.e., Abraham, who is considered a prophet in Muslim tradition) rather than Prophet Muhammad (Fararu, December 28). However, speaking at a press conference held during President Ahmadinejad’s visit to Alborz Province this week, Masha’i said that no criticism had been made, and that he had received no letter of protest following his latest remarks (ILNA, December 28).
It is not the first time that Masha’i has provoked a public outrage for making controversial statements. Several months ago, the president’s office chief caused a scandal when he announced during convention of Iranians residing abroad that Iran had to spread "Iranian thought” in the world and to give it preference over "Islamic thought”. His statement was strongly criticized by senior officials in the conservative camp and in the religious establishment, who accused him of encouraging secular nationalist views and offending Islam.
Masha’i caused another scandal last year by saying that Iran was a friend of all the nations in the world, including the nation of Israel. The statement caused a considerable uproar in Iran, following which Masha’i explained that he referred only to the residents of Palestine, not to "Zionists”. Due to the strong criticism against Masha’i, as well as a direct order given by the Supreme Leader, Ahmadinejad had to go back on his decision to appoint Masha’i as his first vice president following the last presidential elections.
In recent months, there have been several reports of questionable reliability on Iranian media saying that Masha’i intends to run for the presidency of Iran in the next elections, slated for 2013.
While the president’s office chief continues to cause scandals, Ahmadinejad’s first vice president, Mohammad Reza Rahimi, may find himself in legal trouble. Last weekend, judiciary branch spokesman Hojjat-ol-Eslam Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Eje’i said that the judiciary intended to investigate complaints filed by several Majles members against Rahimi for alleged involvement in an economic corruption scandal during his term as head of the Accountant-General’s Office in the years 2004-2008.
Left to right: Masha’i, Ahmadinejad, Rahimi
Rahimi denied the claims against him this week, strongly criticizing the judiciary spokesman’s remarks, saying they went against the constitution and Islamic religious law. He claimed that the accusations made against him were aimed against the government, and that the judiciary had a double standard and ignored complaints filed by him and other government members. He noted that, due to the subsidy policy reform which now keeps the government busy, he prefers not to comment on the accusations immediately and address the issue at a more appropriate time. Rahimi added that he intended to continue serving as Ahmadinejad’s first vice president until the end of his presidential term (IRNA, December 23).
Strong disagreements have arisen between the judiciary and President Ahmadinejad in recent months. In August, judiciary chief Ayatollah Sadeq Amoli Larijani voiced strong criticism of the president for remarks made by Ahmadinejad at a meeting with journalists about the functioning of the judiciary. Larijani is the brother of Majles speaker Ali Larijani, one of President Ahmadinejad’s major opponents from the conservative bloc.
The president himself has shown support for his first vice president this week. Speaking at a press conference, Ahmadinejad’s office chief Masha’i noted that the president was more determined than ever to let Masha’i keep his position (IRNA, December 25). In addition, the president’s office categorically denied a report published on Raja News, a website affiliated with the president’s supporters, saying that Ahmadinejad had allegedly welcomed the judiciary’s announcement on the need to discuss the accusations against Rahimi, and claimed that holding a trial was the most sensible way to find out the truth. According to Raja News, the accusations against Rahimi are aimed to compromise the government. The website also claimed that, unlike Expediency Discernment Council chairman Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who is opposed to putting his son Mehdi Hashemi to trial on charges of involvement in corruption affairs, President Ahmadinejad is willing to conduct a legal discussion on the matter of his first vice president (Raja News, December 27). As mentioned earlier, the president’s office denied the information, claiming that it was a baseless report.
Meanwhile, Majles members agreed by a majority vote to reject Majles member Elias Naderan’s proposal for the Majles Planning and Budget Committee to hold a discussion about the performance of the Accountant-General’s Office during the time it was headed by Rahimi. As the Majles was debating his proposal, Naderan, considered to be one of President Ahmadinejad’s political opponents on the conservative bloc, made serious allegations against Rahimi, claiming that he had compromised state interests even violated the law while he was the head of the Accountant-General’s Office (ILNA, December 28).
Intelligence minister reveals that regime has deciphered encrypted e-mail correspondence of regime opponents
Iran’s Intelligence Minister Hojjat-ol-Eslam Heydar Moslehi announced last weekend that, during the riots that had broken out after the presidential election in June 2009, the Intelligence Ministry had intercepted encrypted e-mail correspondence sent by the rioters and was able to decipher it.
Speaking at a conference on the achievements of Iranian expatriates held at Tehran’s Shahid Beheshti University on Saturday, the minister said that the American administration had created computer networks to fight the Iranian regime, but that the networks failed thanks to the efforts of Iranian intelligence services.
Moslehi claimed that e-mail was the most important means of contact between rioters inside Iran and their supporters abroad, adding that the intelligence services had managed to monitor their activity by intercepting their correspondence and defeat the enemies of the state. He also noted that in an interview given by a senior Iranian official last year, the official revealed that intelligence elements monitored the regime opponents’ e-mail correspondence. Within 24 hours of the interview, the regime opponents began encrypting their correspondence; however, within 48 hours Iranian intelligence experts were able to break the code and decipher the e-mails.
Intelligence Minister Moslehi speaking at a conference
on the achievements of Iranian expatriates
Moslehi went on to say that Iranian expatriates were not part of the opposition. The minister claimed that while the number of anti-regime exiles was limited, foreign intelligence services provided them with equipment and means to help them make their voice heard.
He noted that the Iranian exiles must be encouraged to cooperate with the government of Iran on security-related matters to stop foreign intelligence services from using them for their schemes against the Islamic republic. Many Iranian expatriates reside in Iran’s enemy states, which operate powerful intelligence services, Moslehi said, and the government of Iran must take the necessary steps to keep these Iranians from falling into the trap set for them by such countries. The government needs to gain the trust of the Iranian expatriates by promoting the national identity, values, and beliefs shared by all Iranians (various news agencies, December 25).
After the riots that broke out in the aftermath of the presidential election, Revolutionary Guards and internal security elements claimed that the demonstrators had used e-mails, text messages, and social networks to communicate and send each other reports pertaining to the riots.
In January 2010, internal security forces chief Esma’il Ahmadi-Moqaddam said that the text messages and e-mail correspondence used by the opposition activists to organize violations of public order and illegal demonstrations were monitored by the internal security forces. Speaking at a press conference held during an Iranian police convention, Ahmadi-Moqaddam said that the authorities intended to take stricter measures against those who use text messages and e-mails to organize "illegal gatherings” than against their participants. Ahmadi-Moqaddam warned those responsible for organizing public order disruptions not to be certain that they have the ability to prevent government monitoring of text messages and e-mail correspondence sent by them through proxy servers. Opposition activists must assume that all their correspondence is being fully monitored by the authorities, the internal security forces chief said (ILNA, January 15). Ahmadi-Moqaddam’s statement drew criticism from government critics, who claimed that the statement allegedly contradicted clause 25 of the Iranian constitution, which bans wiretapping and exposing the contents of civilians’ letters, correspondence, and telephone conversations.
As gas prices increase, triggering sharp increase in number of public transportation users, disagreement emerges again between government, Tehran municipality over subway system
This week, Tehran Emrouz, a daily published on behalf of the Tehran municipality, reported a significant increase in the number of public transportation users in Tehran in light of the increase in gas prices following last week’s subsidy cuts.
Figures issued by the Tehran Municipality Department of Transportation this week show a significant increase in the number of passengers on the subway system, buses, and taxis. The past weekend marked the first time since the subway’s launch in 1999 that the number of passengers crossed the 2 million a day mark (compared to an average of 1.4 million passengers on a regular day). There has been a nearly 14 percent increase in the number of bus passengers. At this point, public transportation costs in Iran have not increased.
More Tehran residents use public transportation as gas prices increase
In light of the increase in the number of public transportation users in Tehran, particularly on the subway, the ongoing heated debate between the Tehran municipality and the government over government assistance to the operation and development of the subway system has resurfaced once again. The main point of disagreement is the subway budget, some of which comes from the Tehran municipality and some from the government. The Tehran municipality and the subway management claim that in recent years the government has not been contributing the funds necessary for the operation and development of the subway system. As a result, no cars have been added to the subway in several years, and the currently operating cars, now over a decade old, require frequent repairs. Incidentally, the director of the subway is Mohsen Hashemi, the son of Ali-Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, chairman of the Expediency Discernment Council and one of President Ahmadinejad’s major opponents.
According to President Ahmadinejad, in recent years the government has transferred considerable assistance to the subway system. The severe economic problems facing it are the result of faulty management, Ahmadinejad said. The president’s critics claim that his policy towards the subway system is mostly driven by political considerations that have to do with the fierce political rivalry between Ahmadinejad on one hand and Tehran’s mayor Mohammad Baqer Ghalibaf and subway director Mohsen Hashemi on the other. Last October, Mohsen Hashemi warned that the implementation of the subsidy policy reform would result in extensive public protests and even riots at the subway stations, if the government did not unfreeze a billion-dollar budget approved by the Majles to upgrade and expand the subway system. According to Hashemi, the subway is already unable to service new passengers (Tehran Times, October 14).
This week, Tehran municipality spokesman Khosro Daneshjou was quoted by ILNA News Agency saying that the prices of subway tickets would soon increase by about 340 tomans (about 33 cents). Daneshjou said that without government support, the municipality would not be able to cover the significant electricity expenses involved in the subway’s operation, and would have to increase the subway fares.
The municipality spokesman also reported that the association of taxi drivers petitioned to raise taxi fares following last week’s increase in gas prices. He said that the fares were expected to increase by about 15 percent. Daneshjou noted that the Tehran municipal council worked to implement the subsidy policy reform law in coordination with the government, and that details on the new bus and taxi fares would be released within several days (ILNA, December 26).
On the other hand, Tehran’s mayor Mohammad Baqer Ghalibaf reported this week that the prices of subway and bus tickets would remain the same until the end of the current Iranian year (March 21). Speaking at a press conference, Ghalibaf added that if there was better coordination between the government and the Tehran municipality, the latter could provide better services to the residents of Tehran (Fars, December 27).
House survives earthquake thanks to Ahmadinejad’s photograph
Residents of Kerman Province believe that a photograph of President Ahmadinejad which hung on the wall of a village house hit in the earthquake which struck southeastern Iran prevented its collapse. The story was reported last week by Kerman Province governor Esma’il Najjar
Speaking at an emergency meeting in the Kerman Province, Najjar said that inspections conducted after last Monday’s earthquake in southeastern Iran (December 20) showed that three of the four walls of a house hit in the earthquake collapsed, and only the wall where Ahmadinejad’s photograph was hanging remained standing. The province residents have faith and believe, the governor said, that it was divine intervention that prevented the collapse of the wall which had the picture of the beloved president on it, who did so much to help the people of Iran, and the villagers in particular (ISNA, December 23).
The report on the governor’s remarks was published on numerous Iranian news websites and blogs, and even drew several reactions. On Aftab News (www.aftabnews.com), a web surfer cynically suggested that the president’s photograph should also be put on Iran’s accident-prone planes to keep them from falling as well. One Iranian blogger commented on the photograph of the house published by the conservative Fars News Agency, wondering how it could remain standing after three of its walls had collapsed.
The 6.5-Richter earthquake that struck southeastern Iran last week killed about 40 people and destroyed dozens of villages
Pictures of the week: Majles Foreign Policy and National Security Committee
pays tribute to dismissed foreign minister Manouchehr Mottaki
