Iran’s Parliament Speaker Losing Ground After Shopping Scandal

Amani added that the people are so angry over the behavior and performance of the authorities that they attack any official as soon as they see them. "People make such strongly-worded comments about officials that I cannot quote what they say about them," Amani said.

IRGC’s Fars news website said Amani receives many messages from the people and municipality workers, but as he told Tehran City Council Chairman Mehdi Chamran, he has to censor the comments in his reports to the council.

Amani said that municipality workers, like other government employees are angry because the government has failed to meet its promise of giving a 10 percent pay rise to its employees. He said some municipality workers did not get any raise while others received far less than 10 percent.

The comments by Amani came one day after Parviz Piran, a prominent sociologist and Tehran University academic told Shargh newspaper in Tehran that "There is a very serious likelihood of a "white mutiny" or a "Bread Riot" in Iran.

Professor Piran said that Iranian society cannot envisage a future, adding, "All that some 50 to 60 percent of the population in Iran can do is look for bread, as the minimum requirement for survival."

A survey earlier this year found that over 30 percent of Iranian wanted to leave the country out of despair and lack of hope for future..

Piran further said that an extensive body of research in Iran indicates that the government's social capital has dramatically dropped as the people have lost their confidence in its management. This has coupled with a decline in ethical values that could bring the society to the verge of mutiny, the academic maintained.

He said that trying to make ends meet and pass the day without thinking of tomorrow is a key pathological characteristic of the Iranian society today. "This is a seriously dangerous situation," he assessed.

"In such a situation," said the sociologist, "Norms and values become meaningless and sometimes convey exactly the opposite meaning. This effectively erodes solidarity in society." He added that this situation requires a re-definition of norms and values. Piran said that Iranian society desperately needs to criticize itself to facilitate this re-definition.

Without mentioning the Iranian establishment's dogmatic ideological nature, the sociologist stressed that Iranians need to realize the relative nature of ethics, rationality, social progress and so on.Meanwhile, he said that one of the weaknesses of the Iranian society is that it lacks a theoretical foundation for itself. Academics simply tried to adopt foreign theoretical foundations and apply them to the Iranian society.

Piran noted that some politicians force the academics to come up with a solution for the Iranian society's problems, "but how can you come up with solutions if you do not have the right theoretical frameworks?" he asked.

Explaining his theory of "momentary society," Piran said, "When 50 to 60 percent of the population live under the poverty line, all they can do is think of how to feed themselves to ensure their survival. In a society with high unemployment and high cost of housing, people begin to lose their dream of owning a house as they find it impossible.

The Islamic regime's enmity with MeK is so fierce that even those remotely connected to the group have been handed jail sentences by revolutionary courts, but Mirsalim’s son was pardoned and walked away.

Critics launched an attack on Mostafa Mirsalim for concealing his son’s arrest for three years from those who voted for him. They also criticized the Guardian Council for endorsing his credentials as candidate for the presidency in 2021 and parliamentary elections in 2020.

Mirsalim explained on Twitter earlier this week that "The MeK took advantage of" his son, a simpleton unable of making ends meet in his personal life." However, he said that "the group's only success was recruiting my son," meaning that the group did not get access to any key intelligence through his son. Mirsalim appears to have deleted the tweets later, but it was too late as the press had already cited them.

Critics on social media strongly challenged him. One critic wrote on Twitter that with Mirsalim's position at the Majles and the Expediency Council, “he has released tons of intelligence at home even through sneezing!”

Mirsalim further explained that his son was arrested in June 2019 and was sentenced to five years in jail in February 2020 on charges of acting against national security but was out on bail. He was finally jailed in February 2021. During this period, Mirsalim did not tell anyone about this. However, the lawmaker's son was soon pardoned and released as Mirsalim told the press.

Conservative activist Mansoor Haghighatpoor told Etemad News: "Mirsalim's son could have given a world of intelligence to the MeK as he had access to tons of information. The critic also revealed that the children of some of the Guardian Council members were killed because of their links to the outlawed group. "Although the council disqualified former Majles Speaker Ali Larijani only for her daughter being a resident of a foreign country, it endorsed Mirsalim's qualification for both the presidential and parliamentary elections," Haghighatpoor said.

Aftab News website, quoted reformist activist Abbas Abdi as saying that the arrest and release of Mirsalim's son in 2019 was one of the most destructive forms of discrimination in Iran's political structure. He criticized Iran's conservatives for their silence about the development as well as their attempt to conceal it while even much more benign reasons could have led to severe punishment if the accused was linked to reformists.

Mirsalim, a seasoned member of the hardline conservative Islamic Coalition Party, was previously interior and culture minister in the early years of the Islamic Republic. He who represents Tehran, is known for making potentially libellous comments about the alleged corruption of Majles Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf. The bitter relations and financial rivalries and conflict of interests over Mirsalim's role in preventing the import of new cars to Iran could have played a part in the revelations about his son's case.

Mirsalim's behavior was most certainly being scrutinized by his political rivals. Last week, he had to explain why he was wearing US-made shoes, revealed in a photograph from the parliament floor, that found its way to news websites and social media.

Referring to a Swedish court’s sentencing of former Iranian jailor Hamid Nouri to life imprisonment over executions of political prisoners in 1988, Hossein Shariatmadari, whose newspaper Kayhan is believed to reflect Ali Khamenei’s views, said on Wednesday, "When Iranians aren’t safe in EU, why should EU citizens be safe in Iran?"

He urged authorities to remove obstacles for “punishing Sweden in a regrettable way”.

Earlier in the day, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani called the court “a show” in line with “purification of a terrorist organization,” adding that the court violates the rights of an Iranian citizen as well as Iran's sovereignty. Sweden must stop supporting this terrorist group, referring to Albania-based opposition group, Mujahedin-e Khalq Organization (MEK). 

Iran accused Sweden of giving into pressure by the MEK that Tehran considers a terrorist organization. Most of the approximately 5,000 prisoners summarily executed in prisons were members of MEK serving their sentences.

Nouri -- a former deputy prosecutor at Gohardasht Prison in Karaj at the time of the killings -- was charged with “war crimes, crimes against humanity, torture, and participating in the continued crime of refusing to return the bodies of executed prisoners to their families.” 

Witnesses have told Swedish prosecutors that Nouri, who went by the alias Hamid Abbasi at the time, was responsible for handing down death sentences and taking prisoners to where they were hanged or shot.

Ministry spokesman Naser Kanaani said, “We definitely expect that respected foreign ambassadors residing in Tehran do not comment and intervene on Iran's internal issues.”

Iranian media have often perceived Levan Dzhagaryan's (Jagarian) controversial behavior as intervention in Iran's internal affairs or as flat insults although he does not seem to be bothered by the accusations.

Kanaani added that the foreign ministry is absolutely sensitive to these issues and will act based on its inherent responsibility.

“We must refrain from fueling issues that cause unnecessary problems in our relations with our neighbors,” he emphasized. “We must read Dzhagaryan's statements carefully and see how much his opinion is consistent with his statements.”

On social media and recently in Tehran media, however, Iranians have been demanding an answer to the ambassador's outrageous and provocative remarks. 

“Where are the government and the foreign ministry?" Khabar Online, a moderate conservative news outlet in Tehran asked on Sunday, July 17, after Dzhagarian told Sharq newspaper a day earlier that "We have always been on Iran's side, but the West want to bring their absurd values such as homosexuality and other dirty things to Iran but we object to that!"

Many Iranians on social media reminded the ambassador that Russia is a large producer of pornography in the world.

John Kirby, the White House's chief National Security Council spokesman, told reporters on Tuesday, “I would say three things about this trip. One it shows the degree to which Mr. Putin and Russia are increasingly isolated. Now they have to turn to Iran for help.”

“Two, it shows the degree to which his own defense industrial base is having a hard time keeping up with his unprovoked war in Ukraine,” he went on, highlighting Russia’s troubles regarding precision guided munitions and advanced systems, tanks, even aircraft, particularly with the microelectronics due to the sanctions and export controls. He said the pace of operations in Ukraine has also become a challenge. 

Kirby said the third thing is Russia “has absolutely no intention of stopping the war” and negotiating a settlement with Ukraine, because he wants to buy several hundred UAVs from Iran “to continue to kill Ukrainians.” Putting prefers to turn to Iran rather than just doing the right thing... and ending the war, he added. 

However, Kirby said there is no indication yet that the sale has actually occurred, and that Iran has started training Russian forces to use armed drones, referring to remarks by Jake Sullivan, the US National Security Adviser, who said last week that Tehran planned to supply “several hundred UAVs, including weapons-capable UAVs, on an expedited timeline.”

He said the US is watching the situation closely, as “the Iranians have a domestic production capability of drones and those drones have lethal capabilities. We've seen that for ourselves in the attacks that they have perpetrated in Iraq and in Syria against our own troops and against our own facilities there.”