Iranian Actor's US Tour Sparks Political Controversy

In a parliamentary discussion Saturday, Ghalibaf said that “a car with good quality can be imported” for $5,000 whereas the Iranian version of a Kia Pride, the cheapest and most popular car on the market, costs about around $8,000 (2 billion rials). But it is the parliament and the government, controlling foreign currency, who have not approved additional car imports.

Since the United States introduced ‘maximum pressure’ sanctions in 2018, threatening third parties dealing with the Iranian financial sector, Iran has struggled with imports, while European carmakers in joint projects have withdrawn.

Iranian automakers are also quasi-governmental companies, benefitting from favorable borrowing and lack of competition. Some media in Iran have speculated that this vested interest might have a role in blocking approval for imports.

Parliamentarian Ali Babai Karnami bemoaned an “unrestrained situation” in the car industry. “Who is responsible for the rising car prices?” he asked. “What does the industry ministry do? Shouldn't the parliament monitor [the market]?..The situation of the car market is unbearable and has also had a detrimental effect on the prices of basic goods.”

Earlier in the month, the deputy head of Iran's traffic police Teymour Hosseini claimed domestically-made cars were more liable to fatal accidents and blamed their low quality on a monopoly held by Iranian automakers.

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf claimed before the official opening of the parliament's session on Saturday that there is a "story behind the story" over the disclosures about his family's shopping spree in Turkey.

Ghalibaf said that he was against the trip to Turkey, but his family decided to go Istanbul regardless of his opposition. He explained that his wife had to accompany her daughter and son-in-law to take care of his pregnant daughter, the Iranian Labor News Agency (ILNA) reported.

The scandal broke on April 20, when videos began circulating on social media showing Ghalibaf’s family returning from Turkey with many pieces of luggage, in what appeared to be accessories for his daughter’s baby on the way. Later more reports emerged that the family also bought two apartments in Istanbul worth $1.6 million during the trip.

He claimed that the controversy about the shopping spree was "fiction," adding that the rumors about the excess baggage was all lies and accusations.

"Many told me that that there was nothing special about the trip as it was a private visit. My family did not use diplomatic passport and did not benefit from what they were entitled to based on protocols. They travelled like all other citizens. So, they told me I did not need to take an official position on it," said Ghalibaf.

He added: "But I told them that what they did was not acceptable and that they should apologize to the people. And they did apologize immediately before anyone said anything." Ghalibaf added: "Very few people would ever do that."

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However, the parliament speaker did not explain how his family could afford such a trip on his salary, when the fall in the value of the national currency has made monthly wages less than $200 for most Iranians.

Ghalibaf claimed that "some people who had political intentions continued mudslinging. All the evidence point to the fact there was a political project to tarnish my image." He asked: "How did they find out about the most private matters in my family? How confidential information was put at their disposal? And when they realized that the shopping was not anything important, they fabricated the story about buying real estate."

Ghalibaf further claimed that his political opponents were trying to tarnish the image of the parliament because Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had called it "a revolutionary parliament."

The Majles Speaker said that intelligence organizations have started an investigation the matter and I will chase the case until the end because it is the prestige and status of the Majls which is at stake.

The statement by Ghalibaf about the investigation comes while his aides including Mahmoud Razavi had charged earlier that a certain intelligence agency as behind the disclosures.

Following the meeting, some 233 lawmakers wrote a letter to call on the country's main intelligence agencies, the Ministry of Intelligence and the IRGC Intelligence Organization, to confront "those who launched the mudslinging project against Ghalibaf."

Speaking in Ghalibaf's defense, last week Hossein Ali Shahryari the chairman of the Majles Health Committee told reporters that some lawmakers including Ghalibaf are so busy that they are often not aware of what their family members are doing. Shahryari further said that Ghalibaf should not be blamed for what his family members have done.

Meanwhile, Seyyed Jafar Tashakkori Hashemi, a former aide of Ghalibaf at the Tehran City Council said Ghalibaf's family members are financially independent of the Speaker and they go abroad for shopping like some nine million other Iranians who do so every year.

Ghalibaf’s defenders also resorted to another excuse, which sounded flimsy to many Iranians. They argued that the family’s trip was a “private matter.”

The support by 233 of the parliament's 290 lawmakers, possibly indicates Khamenei’s support for Ghalibaf’s re-election as Majles Speaker for next week. 

The Coordination Council of Iranian Teachers’ Trade Associations said that security officers raided the homes of the several activists in Tehran on Saturday, arrested four and confiscated their electronic devices.

The spokesman of the association, Eskandar Lotfi, said in a tweet that three of the detainees were taken to the notorious Evin prison, adding that tens of their other colleagues from different parts of the country have been summoned to court.

According to reports, the officers used violence against some of the activists who resisted arrest, including Rasoul Badaghi, and broke glasses and furniture with a hammer.

During the latest round of nationwide rallies, demonstrators gathered in front of the Education Ministry building in Tehran on Thursday and its offices in various other cities to protest discriminatory regulations on a teacher ranking plan as well as the "continuous and systematic" suppression of union activists.

Teachers across Iran have staged several nationwide protests and strikes in the past six months and have vowed to continue protests until authorities meet their demands including, the implementation of decade-old legislation that would bring the salaries and pensions of 750,000 teachers in line with other civil servants.

Middle East Eye, based in London, reported that according to a complaint launched in a Florida court Virgin Island officials had been connected to an undercover US Drug Enforcement Agency informant by operatives of Iran-backed Hezbollah, the Lebanese party allied to Iran.

The operative allegedly offered the informant the use of a storage port on the island of Tortola, the most populous of the Virgin Islands, to hold Colombian cocaine en route to Miami.

Fahie was arrested by the DEA along with Oleanvine Maynard, manager of the territory's ports authority. Fahie, Maynard, and Maynard’s son Kadeem had allegedly forged their plan with the informant, who had posed as a member of Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel and who had met "a group of self-proclaimed Lebanese Hezbollah operatives."

Fahie, who has since last year has been the subject of an enquiry into alleged corruption, was allegedly due to make $7.8 million from the scheme. Located in the Caribbean east of Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, the group of islands is a British Overseas Territory with its own elected government.

The sources who spoke to Iran International on condition of anonymity said the accused who is currently in detention in a European country has admitted to receiving $150,000 for organizing the assassinations with one million promised to be paid to him after the completion of the operations.

The alleged operative has confessed, the sources said, that he was ordered to organize the assassination of an Israeli national who worked at the Israeli consulate in Istanbul, an American general in Germany, and a French journalist.

The identities of the alleged targets and the reason for them being targeted have not been revealed.

Israel’s Haaretz reported following the disclosure by Iran International that Mossad played a role in preventing the assassination of its consulate worker in Turkey.

The revelation comes at a sensitive time when talks to restore the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, JCPOA, have stalled becuase of Tehran's demand that the United States shoudl remove the IRGC from its list of terrorist organizations.

IRGC working with drug cartels

Mohsen Sazegara, a United States-based journalist and political activist, told Iran International that there is a possibility the plots were connected to the Islamic Republic's promise to take revenge against the United States for the 2020 assassination of Qods (Quds) Force Commander Ghasem (Qasem) Soleimani, given that one of the targets of the alleged plots is said to have been an American general.

Soleimani was killed in a targeted US drone strike as he arrived at Baghdad airport on January 3, 2020. Iranian officials have repeatedly vowed to avenge his death.

The sources also said the accused has admitted that he had orders to use drug trafficking contacts to carry out the assassination missions.

Sazegara who was among the founders of the IRGC in 1979 and served in several high government positions in the early years of the Islamic Republic also said that Iranian operatives' use of drug traffickers to carry out operations abroad is not new. "For a long time, the Islamic Republic has worked with drug traffickers. The network of drug trafficking-terrorism extends from Kabul to Caracas," he said.

A special IRGC unit

Diplomatic sources who spoke to Iran International also said the man in charge of the alleged assassination plots was a member of the secretive Unit 840 of the Qods Force. The unit’s mission is to conduct operations against Western targets and Iranian opposition groups and individuals.

There is no mention of Unit 840 in Iranian media. The existence of a such a unit has only been reported by Israeli media which in November 2020 reported that Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) had accused Unit 840 of placing explosives on Syrian border.

Ali Afshari, political analyst based in the United States, told Iran International that in his view the IRGC has evolved into a "gangster, mafia-like organization" from an originally "idealistic Shia Islamic fundamentalist entity."

"The IRGC uses drug traffickers and criminal gangs to be able to avoid being held directly responsible for its terrorist operations," Afshari said.

In December 2020 Turkish intelligence said it had discovered a terror network tied to Iran’s Intelligence Ministry that would abduct or assassinated Iranian dissidents. According to Turkish government's official TRT channel, the network and its 11 operatives were behind the abduction of Farajollah Chaab, the former leader of an Iranian Arab separatist Movement.

Iranian intelligence allegedly lured Chaab to Turkey, abducted him, and with the help of an international Turkey-based drug cartel known as the Zindashti Cartel whisked him to Iran where he was later put on trial.

In 2013 the United States sentenced Iranian-American Manssor Arbabsiar to 25 years in prison. Arbabsiar, a car dealer, admitted to plotting the assassination of the Saudi ambassador to Washington on orders from Iranian military officials. Arbabsiar was arrested after the FBI and US Drug Enforcement Agency became suspicious of his visits to Mexico and contacts with a Mexican drug cartel.