Leading Iran News Outlet Berates Ghalibaf For ‘Ping-Pong Criticism’

Valiollah Seif headed the CBI from 2013 to 2018, during the first six years of Hassan Rouhani’s presidency but was accused of improper foreign currency transactions together with one his deputies, Ahmad Araghchi, nephew of Iran’s former chief nuclear negotiator, Abbas Araghchi.

The spokesman of the notorious Judiciary, which combines both prosecutorial and court functions, said that Ahmad Araghchi was sentenced to 8 years. The charges were improperly selling160 million US dollars and 20 million euros on the open market.

Another person charged in the case is Salar Aghakhani, a foreign currency dealer for Ansar Bank of the Revolutionary Guard Cooperatives Foundation.

Ahmad Araghchi in his defense in 2018 had said that the sale of hard currencies took place for boosting the value of the Iranian currency, rial, in coordination with the Intelligence Ministry and based on a request by the Supreme National Security Council and orders by president Rouhani.

Iran’s central bank routinely intervenes in the volatile foreign currency market, usually to defend the ever falling value of the rial.

Abbas Mohammadian, who was appointed to the post by IRGC Commander Hossein Salami earlier this week, has told the media in Tehran on Friday that his organization, the Media Basij, will strive to direct the media in a way that they would explain the Islamic Republic's underlying theme of Velayat-e Faqih, (Guardianship of the Jurisconsult), or the principle of Supreme Leader’s legitimacy to the people.

Basij is IRGC's paramilitary force, and its members are embedded in all government offices, industrial entities and social institutions to uphold and reinforce the regime's authority. The organization maintains 144 battalions whose job is to help shore up the regime’s authority among the public.

Mohammadian explained that Khamenei believes "the media have forgotten spirituality," and is unhappy because they have not met his expectations. Mohammadian reiterated that the media have done very little in explaining the virtues of the Supreme Leader to the people.

He went on to say that this is a matter to be followed up by the Culture Ministry. Recently, Culture MinisterMohammad Mehdi Esmaili announced an extensive plan to restructure the state media system to make it more consistent with the hardline nature of the governing Islamic system.

Morteza Kazemain, a journalist in London, told Iran International TV Friday morning that Khamenei's unhappiness about the media reflects his interest in consolidating his authoritarian rule. Kazemian added that the IRGC uses the Media Basij to convince the people about the regime's authority and to spread disinformation to serve the regime's interests.

Kazemian further said that thousands of Media Basij members all over Iran create content on social media to counter news and information dissemination by other traditional and social media outlets including foreign-based news organizations.

An indication of Khamenei's unhappiness with the media is that he did not extend the mandate of former state TV chief Abdolali Ali Askari after his first five years, and the director before him, Mohammad Sarafraz wrote in his memoir that he had to resign his post after only two years as the IRGC intervened in his responsibilities.

Meanwhile, as Kazemian pointed out, Khamenei has always had a negative attitude toward the media. He has not had any interviews with the press or his own state TV during the 32 years he has been Iran's Supreme Leader.

According to several polls conducted by state-owned polling agencies, the state television's popularity has been constantly dropping during the past years, particularly in the past three years when the state TV lost another 15 percent of its viewers.

At the same time, as Ensaf News website observed, the daily readership of Iranian newspapers has plummeted dramatically during the past two years, declining to as little as 1,000-3,000 copies for flagship dailies. The papers contested the website's report not because it was not true, but because they keep pretending to have a high readership to get more subsidies from the government.

Censorship and government control has not left anything interesting in the press. Readers, instead turn to social media where some of the platforms are highly popular. Instagram has over 22 million users and Telegram has more than 45 million users according to government officials. This is probably the reason why the Iranian government is so adamant to block access to social media such as Facebook and You Tube.

Ahmadinejad who never left Iran after the end of his second term in 2013, suddenly flew to Dubai this week, proving that he is not under a political travel ban.

In a message he read out while visiting the Islamic Republic of Iran's stand and published on his Telegram channel, which has over 414,000 subscribers, the former populist president called himself "the representative of the Iranian nation" at the Expo.

He said he will carry "the Iranian nation's message of peace, friendship and brotherhood" to all other stands at the exhibition.

Some Persian-speaking media outlets outside Iran questioned his claim of representing the Iranian nation.

Ahmadinejad's telegram channel carried several photos and videos showing him with Iranian and foreign visitors taking selfies with him or greeting him at various stands.

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Iranian reformist daily Arman wrote in an extensive commentary about Ahmadinejad's visit to the Expo that the former president "always likes to be in the spotlight. He wants others to talk about what he does and says."

The daily described the visit to a foreign country by Ahmadinejad as a move similar to other recent developments that indicate a change in the regime's treatment of former politicians whose movement had been restricted. Arman pointed out that former president Mohammad Khatami was recently allowed to deliver a speech at a mausoleum in Tehran and there are rumors that proreform Green Movement Leader Mirhossein Mousavi's wife who has been under house arrest for over a decade with her husband is now free to go around.

Meanwhile, another Green Movement Leader, Mehdi Karroubi was also allowed to deliver a speech in a small group of Iranian politicians last week when he said there is nothing wrong with the essence of the Islamic Republic and only its shortcomings need to be addressed.

However, it is still not known that the travel ban imposed on Khatami, and the ban on the publication of his pictures in the Iranian press have been lifted. Also, there is no news about whether restrictions on Mousavi are going to be lifted or eased.

Iranian analysts speaking to Iran International TV, including Morteza Kazemian, said that Ahmadinejad's situation appears to be different as he has a sizable following who might support his return to the political scene if not to power at one point.

Others say that the presence of many Ahmadinejad's political allies, including vice president Massoud Mirkazemi and Energy Minister Ali Akbar Mehrabian as well as several provincial governors in President Ebrahim Raisi’s administration and dozens of lawmakers in Majles gives him a special position.

Ahmadinejad is being accompanied by his wife during the visit and her appearance next to Ahmadinejad has attracted attention in Dubai.

Ahmadinejad's visit is taking place while both he and his media adviser Ali Akbar Javanfekr who accompanies him have outstanding legal cases against them at the Iranian Judiciary which seems to have turned a blind eye to allow the foreign visit, Arman noted, adding that there is probably no travel ban imposed on Ahmadinejad. Javanfekr has also denied the existence of a travel ban.

Another former Ahmadinejad aide, Abdolreza Davari has denied accusations that Ahmadinejad, who has been extremely critical of the regime since 2017, is getting special treatment for keeping silent. Davari said this is not true as Raisi's condition for giving key posts to the former Ahmadinejad allies was cutting their ties with Ahmadinejad.

Former foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and Rouhani’s Communication and ICT Minister Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi are also targets for hardliners who want to find scapegoats for the country's economic, foreign policy and social problems.

The attempt to put Rouhani and his ministers on trial, as the Majles has been calling it, could also be a cover to divert attention from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei who is the man making nearly all decisions relating to the affairs of the state without assuming responsibility when his policies go wrong.

Iran has faced various degrees of isolation during Khamenei’s 32-year rule and has faced sanctions because of his policies opposing the United States, Israel and the West in general.

On October 7, Mohammad Hossein Asafari, the deputy chairman of the Iranian parliament's Interior Affairs Committee called for putting Rouhani and Zarif on trial and blamed them for the failure in nuclear negotiations in Vienna to revive the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers.

Asafari even accused Zarif of signing the deal also called the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) without having read it first. He said the Rouhani administration should have sought guarantees from the US to stand by its promises under the JCPOA.

Despite denials by Zarif, Asafari charged that Zarif has allegedly "confessed" that he did not know about the terms of the deal. He said: "All the evidence available indicate that the failure of the talks is due to the negligence of the negotiating team led by Zarif."

Subsequently, another influential lawmaker told the media that a legal case has been made against Zarif and Rouhani. Hassan Shojaee said that the committee has received a petition signed by more than 500,000 individuals who demanded Rouhani's trial.

According to Shojaee, the charges against Rouhani include, "not doing anything about rising [foreign currency] rates, devaluation of national currency and destruction of people's assets, giving key jobs to spies and dual nationals, and failing to tackle the rising death toll as the coronavirus pandemic raged on." Rouhani is being blamed for the pandemic toll, while it was Khamenei who banned the purchase of American and British vaccines in January.

Reformist daily Sharq has described the initiatives taken by the Majles against Rouhani and his ministers as an attempt to settle scores now when he is out of power and unable to respond to charges like before. Sharq said the hardliners treat Rouhani in a way as if mudslinging is their only solution in the face of the country's problems.

In another development, the Iranian Judiciary has announced that former Communication and ITC minister Jahromi is free on bail and might be called to court to stand trial or even go to jail. He has been a target for hardliners who accuse him of not pursuing more internet censorship, specially blocking popular social media apps.

Recently, Jahromi once again opposed parliament's plan to ban or radically restrict all social media, while hardliner lawmakers, including former ultraconservative Paydari Party leader Morteza Agha Tehrani, said that they would further the plan even all 80 million Iranians oppose it.

The change in the Iranian media scene started with the appointment of Payman Jebelli as the head of the country's state television as the most significant media outlet directly under the supervision of Khamenei and his office. A long-time manager at state television, he has close links with Khamenei’s office and key hardliners.

Minister of Culture Mohammad Mehdi Esmaili made the remark while introducing Farshad Mehdipour, another hardline journalist and a relative of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's wife as his deputy minister for the press. Mehdipour was previously the editor of conservative e Sobh-e No newspaper that was Majles Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf's mouthpiece when he was the mayor of Tehran. Esmaili introduced Mehdipour as a “theoretician” in news dissemination.

No one knows how much the government spends on state media, but in mid-2010s before the effective devaluation of Iran currency, the state television budget alone was close to one billion dollars, with more than 40,000 employees in 2020 compared with CNN’s 4,000. Thousands of people also work for hundreds of state newspapers and websites.

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Another step in the restructuring of the media landscape is the belated appointment of the managing director and members of the high council of the official news agency IRNA, which stands for the Islamic Republic News Agency.

Esmaili appointed Ali Naderi, an ultraconservative journalist and the former editor of hardline Raja News, a pro-Ahmadinejad and pro-Paydari Party news outlet as the new managing director of IRNA. Naderi has said that IRNA is going to be "the news agency of the government and the political system [Nezam]”, which is also a nickname for Khamenei used by his devotees when they wish to distance him from his style of micromanagement.

IRNA has traditionally been under the control of presidential administrations, usually echoing the ideas and highlighting 'accomplishments' of the country's presidents. Its political slant changed with every presidential election. It was a proreform news outlet under President Mohammad Khatami, a hardline agency under Ahmadinejad and a moderate conservative news organization under President Hassan Rouhani.

With the appointment of the members of the High Council of Policymaking of IRNA, it appears that Tehran is serious about tightening its grip on the media, news dissemination and all sorts of cultural activities. The new council members are hardliners mainly supporting the ultraconservative Paydari Party, although Mehdipour is better characterized as a member of Qalibaf's self-proclaimed neo-con group.

Esmaili appointed another Paydari Party affiliate Mohammad Khazaei as deputy culture minister for cinema.

Meanwhile, the new deputy for cultural affairs who oversees books and other publications, Yasser Ahmadvand, and the acting deputy minister for artistic affairs Mahmoud Shaloui whose mandate is to make sure that musical and theatrical activities, as well as paintings and sculptures strictly comply with Shiite standards, are also well-known hardliner figures.

Even before introducing the new changes, dozens of news outlets in Iran belonged to either Khamenei's office (Kayhan, Khorasan and a fleet of social media platforms, etc.) or the revolutionary guards IRGC (Tasnim, Fars, Sepah News, Basij News, Basirat, Javan, Sobh-e Sadeq, etc). Others such as Mehr (Islamic Propagation Organization), Hemayat, Mizan News (the Judiciary) and scores of others were funded by various government offices.

The question now is that if the entire system is becoming part and parcel of the “regime”, or Khamenei’s office, and there is no room for factional politics, why the government needs over 50 TV channels and tens of news agencies, newspapers and news websites. Their only purpose appears to be for insider groups to receive hundreds of millions of dollars in funding from state coffers.