Foreign Shopping Trip Scandal Prompts Calls For Iran Speaker To Resign

Lawmaker Mansour Haghighatpour said on Tuesday that Faezeh Hashemi has crossed the Islamic Republic's "red lines" and "trampled on the country's values and national interests. So much leniency emboldens people like her. I believe that the Islamic Republic must take appropriate punitive action against Faezeh Hashemi and discipline her," he said.

Hashemi is the daughter of former president Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani and a member of the Central Council of the pro-reform Kargozaran-e Sazandegi (Executives of Construction) Party.

Fars news agency affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard on Tuesday called Hashemi a "foot soldier" of the United States while another IRGC-affiliated media outlet, Javan newspaper dubbed her "flagrant" and criticized her party and the Rafsanjani clan for not officially renouncing her.

Hashemi had said during a discussion on the social media app Clubhouse on April 16 that removing the IRGC from the US list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO) was not in Iran's interest.

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Hashemi had argued it is possible that certain factions in the IRGC may be intentionally taking actions to keep the whole entity on the US terrorist list. She cited IRGC's missile attack on Iraq's Kurdish regional capital of Erbil in March and criticized the Guards for boasting about the attack instead of keeping a profile as the country’s defender, posing no threat to others in the region.

She also said the IRGC is constantly broadening both the sphere and scope of its activities in Iran’s economy and politics, making it even harder to stick to its military role. “The only way for the IRGC to return to the barracks is to keep them on the [FTO] sanctions list,” she said.

This is not the first time in recent years that Hashemi has ventured into criticizing the Iranian regime’s core values or positions, espoused by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his hardliner supporters. In January, she said the Islamic Republic was responsible in the killing half a million Syrians with its military intervention in the Syrian civil war.

Hardliner social media users have accused Hashemi of being a traitor to the country, while others including some anti-regime activists have said that her criticism of the regime could only be acceptable when she also admits her father's role in engineering the selection of Ali Khamenei as Supreme Leader in 1989, and later allowing the IRGC to assume an economic role.

Abdolreza Davari, one of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's advisors and confidants said Hashemi was wrong to say the IRGC should not be delisted and considered her remarks "against national security" but defended her right to freedom of expression. "Why should she and her late father be subjected to so many threats, accusations, and abuse instead of her remarks being logically criticized?" Davari tweeted.

Faezeh Hashemi is perhaps the most controversial of Hashemi-Rafsanjani's five children and often targeted by hardliners for her candid criticism of the regime, compulsory hijab, and prosecution of followers of the banned Baha'i faith. She is also the former president of Women's Sports Federation and editor-in-chief of banned reformist Zan newspaper.

Hashemi has been prosecuted for her activities on several occasions and served two six-month prison sentences for "propaganda against the state" and similar charges in 2012 and 2017.

Arian Taherzadeh and Haidar Ali were arrested earlier this month by the FBI when it came to light that they were impersonating Homeland Security agents and had established ties with Secret Service agents, lavishing gifts on them. One agent was a member of First Lady jill Biden’s protection detail.

They were indicted Tuesday on charges of false impersonation of a federal agent and possession of a large-capacity ammunition device. The suspects had a range of law enforcement paraphernalia in their possession when they were arrested, including body armor and surveillance equipment.

Their scheme required a considerable amount of money, and it is not clear how they financed their operation. They offered expensive rent-free apartments, guns, iPhones and other gifts to federal agents.

A judge on April 8 released them from detention on the grounds that prosecutors had not established a foreign connection, but Haidar Ali’s passport shows he had Iranian visas and might have traveled to Iran in recent years.

It is not clear if prosecutors will appeal the decision of the judge to release the suspects into the custody of their families after the grand jury indictment.

Twitter users in Iran reported that some employees also gathered at the ministry's parking area and courtyard chanting slogans against Labor Minister Hojjat Abdolmaleki who had told the press in February that he had fired over 1,000 employees.

Pictures of the protest published by Iranian news outlets including Rouydad24 website, show the employees waiting for the minister to come forward and answer their questions. However, he did not leave his office at the ministry.

Employees also accused Abdolmaleki of launching a publicity to show off his "achievements" despite criticisms by staff and the media over his populist behavior. Some Twitter user published a publicity poster, adding that Abdolmaleki has used the ministry's funds to showcase his performance. Several members of the Iranian parliament have said that Abdolmaleki will be one of the first Raisi ministers to be impeached as soon as the parliament’s leadership allows impeachment motions to be tabled and go forward.

Reports from Tehran say Deputy Labor Minister Mohammad Reza Hosseini tried to calm the protestors, but his effort was not successful. The employees chanted "Payments with Justice" demanding fair pay.

One employee told Rouydad24: "It is ironic that the staff of other government and private companies come to the labor ministry to voice their grievances while its own employees have nowhere to go to seek relief for their grievances."

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Another employee asked: "How can the labor minister manage the situation of unemployment in the country while he cannot sort out the problems in his own ministry?" He reminded that Abdolmaleki promised to quickly create millions of jobs in Iran at low cost, but it never materialized.

Other employees criticized the minister and his aides for putting on a show rather than working to solve staff problems. One employee told reporters that Abdolmaleki made no plans to tackle unemployment in Iran since he assumed office eight months ago. Earlier, Abdolmaleki had said in an odd comment that "Creating jobs was not among the responsibilities of the labor ministry."

Criticism of other economic ministers of the Raisi administration has also been on the rise during the past months. Lawmaker Behrouz Mohebbi on Tuesday harshly criticized Industry Minister Reza Fatemi Amin who is also on the parliament's impeachment list, charging that he has not met any one of the many promises he made before joining the government.

Mohebbi further charged that the managers of car manufacturing companies affiliated with the Ministry of Industry drive foreign cars and do not care about the rising price and falling quality of Iranian-made cars. "If they used Iranian cars, they would have made efforts to improve the quality of domestic products at least for their families' safety," he said.

Mohebbi also criticized the minister for failing to control the car market. According to the media last week, the price of a basic old model compact car called Pride, rose by 400 million rials ($1,600) overnight and reached 2 trillion rials.

Mohebbi said, "when Fatemi Amin's credentials were being reviewed at the parliament, he promised to put an end to the monopoly of the two car makers affiliated with the ministry, to boost production and to improve quality. Some eight months on, none of these promises have materialized." He reminded Fatemi Amin that even Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has acknowledged that people are unhappy about his ministry's performance.

Ganjzadeh said in an Instagram post on Monday that such an approach forces athletes to only attend Asian competitions, in which Israel does not participate.

Urging the authorities not to consider only political issues and their ideological position, the Olympics gold medalist said, "We cannot tolerate this anymore. Not competing is more difficult than competing”.

Iran is a sworn enemy of Israel, calling for its destruction and prohibits sportspeople from playing against Israeli competitors. There is no legislation banning athletes but under pressure from federation officials, they usually lose games intentionally, forfeit matches or claim injury to avoid facing Israelis.

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has often praised Iranian athletes who refuse to play against Israelis, and in September 2021 said they should continue to do so even if facing punishment by international sports bodies.

About 30 Iranian athletes in recent years have defected from Iranian national teams and sought asylum in other countries, including Judo champion Saeid Mollaei, Greco-Roman national team wrestler Ali Arsalan, and many others.

Mollaei defected to Mongolia in 2019 after reportedly losing a fight to avoid Israel's Sagi Muki. As a result of the Mollaei case, the International Judo Federation in April 2021 banned Iran's judo teams from international competitions for four years. At the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, Mollaei won a silver medal competing under the Mongolian flag.

The parliament gave the go-ahead in its Tuesday session with 190 votes in favor of the move that will probe the transactions of the Iranian Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines and Agriculture (Iran Chamber) during the past 10 years. The Chamber is a quasi-state entity.

On Saturday, the conservative Farhikhtegan newspaper alleged that a review of documents related to the payments of 40 companies to the Chamber in the last four years indicates that a huge amount of money is not accounted for in the institution’s ledger.

In one case, the Chadormalu Mining and Industrial Company was supposed to pay the chamber about 900 billion rials but data show that only 30 billion– about one-thirtieth – was actually paid.

The chairman of the Chamber Masoud Khansari said on Tuesday that the reports are not based on accurate numbers and the Judiciary should investigate where such figures came from, describing the report as a blow to the government.

Earlier in April, the general director of a major government pension fund said that around $400 million was lost either through mismanagement or embezzlement.

Iran ranked 150 out of 180 countries in the 2021 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), one step lower than the previous year, which weakens its struggling economy.