Expert Says Iran’s Inflation To Soar Beyond 50% In 2023

Condemning the violence in a statement on Sunday, the Coordination Council of Iranian Teachers’ Trade Associations, the body that has organized numerous nationwide protest rallies and strikes in the past few years, described the minister as an “incompetent and good-for-nothing element.” 

"Unfortunately, in the last week, we witnessed the brutal attack of security forces and plainclothes on educational centers in various cities of the country, including schools in Kordestan province, Gohardasht and Mehrshahr near the capital Tehran, Orumiyeh (Urmia) and Ardabil in northwestern Iran and the northern city of Rasht,” the statement read. “Creating terror, the security forces arrested several students and transferred them to unknown places," it added. 

The latest case was the attack on a school in Ardabil, where school officials tried to force the students to sing the propaganda song “Hello Commander” in praise of Iran’s ruler Ali Khamenei, but when some students refused, government agents showed up, beating and assaulting the girls. One student, identified as Asra Panahi, reportedly died of her injuries at the hospital while another one is in critical condition. 

On Saturday, hardliner news agencies published a video of an interview with Asra Panahi’s uncle in which he said she has died of a congenital heart condition.

Amid nationwide protests that have even mobilized Iranian high school students, the Islamic Republic authorities are removing photos of the Supreme Leader from classrooms in fear of students damaging the portraits.

Protesters in the past four weeks have been routinely setting fire to large street garbage bins to block streets and prevent security forces from approaching demonstrators, and to protest themselves against tear gas.

A host of top officials have called this a costly destruction of public property, with the chairman of Tehran City Council warned recently that the government cannot replace the trash bins so quickly as each cost around $500.

Aftab News, a reformist website has taken issue with these officials, saying that in the first place, the price quoted is almost four times higher than the retail price for these large, square containers.

In an article on Sunday, Aftab News has then listed a series of large-scale corruption cases linked with government officials, regime insiders, banks and pension funds in the past three decades, arguing that these cases cost taxpayers the equivalent of billions of trash bins.

Iran’s economic system is controlled by the government, large religious and military conglomerates, largely based on political influence networks, nepotism and corrupt arrangements. Although the country has exported well above one trillion dollars of oil in this period, economic growth has been anemic and people have become poorer, especially in the past decade.

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Aftab News argued that in contrast to officials criticizing protesters, some reformists and others argue that many top figures have remained silent throughout the years regarding government corruption and what people in the streets do is nowhere as destructive as what officials have done. The website pointed out that in the 2021 global corruption ranking Iran was in the bottom quarter, ranking 150 among 180 countries.

Some regime insiders recently have raised their voice saying that corruption has become alarmingly systematic. Ahmad Tavakoli a member of a constitutional body and Mahmoud Sadeghi a former lawmaker are among those who have raised the alarm.

Aftab News quotes others as saying corruption cases that reach the government-controlled media are “the tip of the iceberg,” pointing out that in one $60-billion state “charity” organization not even one employee has been fired or reprimanded over four decades, while the conglomerate is not accountable to parliament or the government.

It also points to one corruption case in government petrochemical exports that reached the courts in recent years and totaled $7.4 billion, equivalent to more than 60 million trash bins.

Aftab News then goes on listing a dozen other large corruption cases, including a decade-old case of $3 billion disappearing from the central bank and the perpetrator now living in Canada. It mentions the case of Babak Zanjani, an insider businessman tasked with exporting oil during international sanctions in 2010-2013, who pocketed at least $2.7 billion and is now in prison sentenced to death.

Just this year in August, a $3 billion case was revealed in the semi-public Mobarakeh steel plant and after two months no one has been arrested, let alone indicted.

Aftab news says that funds lost in just a few of these corruption cases could buy more than 50 billion trash bins, while high-ranking officials, including Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian make a fuss about a few hundred set on fire by protesters.

In a phone call with Portuguese Minister of Foreign Affairs João Gomes Cravinho, Amir-Abdollahian criticized the “interventionist” statements and measures by other countries, saying that they provoke people and instigate unrest in Iran. 

He claimed that some countries consider “riots and terrorist activities” as a form of protest, denouncing the move by European countries that put the issue of additional resolutions or sanctions on the agenda of the upcoming meeting of the Council of Ministers of the European Union.

Despite numerous reports by the Ukrainian military about the use of the Iranian drones by the Russian forces, Amir-Abdollahian repeated claims that “The Islamic Republic of Iran has not and will not provide any weapon to be used in the Ukraine war.”

According to unconfirmed reports, the EU is set to sanction four entities and 11 high-ranking Iranian military and security officials for their roles in the repression of the uprising, ignited by the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini.

During a phone conversation with Amir-Abdollahian on Friday, EU Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell urged the Islamic Republic to stop the repression of protesters and to release those detained since the uprising began in mid-September.

A senior EU official said Friday that the EU foreign ministers will meet in Luxembourg on Monday also to discuss the transfer of Iranian drones to Russia, noting that the ministers will not take any decisions on additional Iran sanctions but could reach a political agreement on future sanctions linked to a transfer of drones.

Despite reports that Tehran is sending out letters to EU diplomats, claiming that "bilateral relations may not survive" as the EU moves to penalize Iran for killing protesters, the uprising is garnering more and more support among Western government officials and politicians.

Marking the birthday of Prophet Mohammed, Khamenei spoke at an Islamic conference that Tehran organizes annually by inviting clerical and religious figures from its orbit of influence in different countries.

Khamenei who has twice recently mentioned the nationwide protests rocking Iran saying that they were “minor events”, focused on the issue of Islamic unity from the perspective of the Islamic Republic.

The 83-year-old cleric who has ruled Iran for 33 years, said the establishment of relations with Israel by some Arab countries was “the biggest treason” and it is not possible to create unity with them.

Khamenei who is presented by his clerical regime as “the leader of Muslims” has some influence among Shiites who are a small minority among Muslims, but not among Sunnis, many of whom regard the Shia sect as a deviation from the true religion.

Khamenei also praised Iran’s efforts in helping Palestinian groups confronting Israel and said that the Islamic Republic stood up against world powers and can be an example to other Muslims.

He reiterated his support for the “Resistance Front”, a term coined by Tehran to refer to militant groups in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon and elsewhere that enjoy its financial and military assistance.

Since the early days of the Islamic Republic, the clerical leadership has consistently eliminated political parties, free media, and anyone who could possibly be in a position to lead the opposition. This has manifested itself in the biggest characteristic of the current movement which is spontaneous and has no leader.

Some pundits warn that without a leadership the movement which has chosen “Women, Life, Liberty” as its motto may fail to achieve its goal of overthrowing the Islamic Republic, and to sustain its achievement if it succeeds. Others say lacking a known leader makes it much harder for the establishment to suppress the movement.

Unlike the politically driven protests in 2009, and economic protests between 2016 and 2019, the driving force of the current movement is the people’s determination to restore their social rights by getting rid of clerical rule.

“The center of gravity of the society’s immediate demands has changed from politics to citizen’s rights,” prominent reformist theoretician Saeed Hajjarian said in an analysis published Thursday while stressing that the movement should not ignore the political playground to be able to ensure long-term irrevocability of its gains.

What appears to be uniting the protesters is dislike and even hatred of the clerical regime.

A large and fierce protest in Tehran's Nazi Abad district Wednesday night.

Protests – on the streets, in universities, and schools -- are now taking place in nearly a hundred large and small cities and towns. Despite the growth of the movement, Islamic Republic’s ruler Ali Khamenei and his officials continue to deny the authenticity of the current movement and insist that foreign “enemies” including the United States, Britain, Israel, and Saudi Arabia, are fomenting the unrest.

Authorities also insist that protesters are only a small minority. The government mouthpiece, Iran newspaper, claimed Thursday that only 80,000 have taken part in the protests across the country.

The footage that finds its way to social media despite serious Internet disruption appears to confirm their claim as these usually show smaller groups of people protesting. However, this is because protesters’ flash-mob-style tactic that confuses security forces and reduces their vulnerability to attacks by government forces.

There have been exceptions too, when thousands have gathered in one area such as the protests Saturday and Wednesday in the working-class Nazi Abad neighborhood in Tehran, where overwhelmed by the sheer numbers, security forces largely remained on the side-lines.

In the past few years ultra-hardliners, whose sway on all forces and institutions of the state was completed with the ascension of Ebrahim Raisi to presidency, have intensified social restrictions.

More interference in people’s lifestyles and popular resentment of the political and religious establishment is so bluntly felt now that even some former and current officials find themselves incapable of defending it.

“The ruling system has clearly broken into two. You can see this in officials’ remarks and attitude,” a political analyst who asked not to be named said referring to remarks by two prominent establishment figures in the past couple of days.

“What should people do if they don’t want to be led to enjoining good?” the minister of cultural heritage and tourism, Ezzatollah Zarghami, said in a tweet Tuesday referring to the Islamic concept of promoting moral goodness and forbidding evil according to Sharia. For ultra-hardliners enforcing hijab is following that edict. Former speaker Ali Larijani in remarks Wednesday in also criticized hijab policing.

Zarghami and Larijani both hail from the Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) and both have served at the helm of the Islamic Republic’s biggest propaganda machine, the state broadcaster (IRIB) for many years.