Politicians Warn About Rising Poverty In Iran, Affecting Tens Of Millions

Atefeh Ahmadi, Iran's number one skier and the flag bearer of the national teams in the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, has told Iran International that she does not intend to participate in these competitions and has applied for asylum in Germany.

The 22-year-old was the only Iranian woman to qualify for the Beijing Games. She is also the winner of five Asian medals and several gold medals in the Turkish Alpine Skiing International Championships.

She is a silver medalist in the Super-G event of the 2018 Asian Alpine Ski Championships.

Her father was a member of the Iranian national cross-country skiing team. He also became the first coach for Atefeh and her sister Hadis.

Around 30 Iranian athletes have defected in recent years, seeking asylum in other countries.

In addition to dress code restrictions, another issue forcing Iranian athletes to defect is Tehran’s policy of not allowing them to compete against Israelis.

Many Iranian athletes have also displayed solidarity with 2022 protest movement at international games despite threats of punishment.

Authorities have made serious threats against athletes and other celebrities to stop them from public displays of solidarity with protesters but to no avail.

Since September, the country has been in turmoil. Protests have somehow slowed down in recent weeks, but there is no sign that the crisis is anywhere near resolution. In fact, many believe that the relative quiet these days is only the calm before a storm.

After protests during which people regularly chanted against clerical rule and its top authority, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and the killing of over 500 protesters within the last four months, elections next year does not appear to be of interest to most Iranians now.

Young protesters who often chant “Reformist-Principlist, this is the end of the story” see little difference between regime hardliners and reformists who want to make changes in the Constitution and laws to make them more democratic within the framework of the Islamic Republic.

In November, some prominent reformists figures met with top officials including Chief Justice Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejei, Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani, and Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi to start a dialogue over the current circumstances and the unrest in the country.

Media reported that they demanded the authorities to stop violence against protesters and open the atmosphere and allow people’s voices to be heard. They were reportedly promised that a few of them could meet with and directly convey their concerns to Khamenei but it appears that their plea has completely been ignored.

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Some reformists have argued that the only way the country can be saved from its dire economic, social and political crisis is through the ballot box, but also said the hardliner Guardian Council which staunchly refuses to allow anyone outside their political circle to run in any elections has completely blocked that path.

However, it is not clear if ‘reformists’ only want their names to appear on ballot papers, or are also in favor of allowing opponents of the regime to be allowed to run.

Even before the current spate of protests, a considerable majority of Iranians were already deeply frustrated with the tightly controlled elections and voting for the very few moderate-reformist candidates who are allowed to run. Even when elected, these officials had no real power in a system dominated by hardliners and conservatives collectively known as Principlists.

The deeply disgruntled electorate very clearly turned its back on ballot boxes in the latest election. Participation rate in the June 2021 presidential elections dropped to an all-time low of 48%. These included 13% void ballots cast by voters who felt they had to vote but did not favor any of the four candidates filtered by the Guardian Council, including a less prominent reformist.

In a note in Etemad newspaper on January 22, former reformist lawmaker Kamaleddin Pourmoazen warned that it is no longer possible to accede to “a hugely ambiguous and untransparent [election] law” that hardliners easily manipulate to limit the nation’s right to determine its destiny.

Referring to the low turnout in the previous parliamentary and presidential elections, he said it is no longer possible to run the country with officials elected with minimal participation of the electorate and ignore the rest.

The totalitarian Paydari Front, which has now spread its dominion to nearly all centers of power, will only make the country more vulnerable against threats, both domestically and internationally, and deepen the rift between the rulers and the ruled, he warned. In the current circumstances the ruling hardliners have no way out of the impasse they have created other than opening up the political atmosphere for real, he argued.

According to Etemad newspaper, based on the new legislation, making any comment about the state of affairs in the country can land people in trouble, particularly politicians, political activists and celebrities.

The newspaper said that lawmakers at the Judiciary Committee wish to make sure that all public comments are identical with official version of developments. The headline of Etemad's report said: "Watch your mouth, you might be punished if what you say is different from the official reading!"

The paper said that the motion at the Majles is currently called "Adding one article to Chapter five of the Islamic Penal Code." The report in Etemad further opined that the new legislation may mainly target "well-known and famous" individuals.

The parliament had previously tabled another motion dubbed, "Adding two articles to Chapter five of the Islamic Penal Code," which called for changing articles 499 and 500 of the law. The new article 499 now calls for more severe punishment for those who "insult ethnic or religious minorities with the aim of instigating violence and tension," and the new article 500 intensifies the punishment of "those who commit criminal offenses against law enforcers and government buildings."

The amendments were made in December following months of protests in Iran during which occasional clashes occurred between heavily armed security forces such as the IRGC, police special forces, the Basij militia and plainclothes officers who attacked unarmed protesters.

The new change is about article 512 of the penal code which is about "those who provoke the people in order to disrupt the country's security through instigating war, massacres and civil strife."

The sentence for those who were charged with related offenses was imprisonment for five years, but the new addition is aimed at intensifying the punishment and making it easier for the courts to apply the article on anyone in jail as it is known today by human rights organizations that inmates are made to confess to crimes they have never committed.

The new legislation extends the duration of imprisonment to up to 15 years and also calls for the payment of up to 550 million rials no matter if the act committed "will or will not lead to murder and destruction of property."

Meanwhile, the new addition to the law says, "Anyone with a good job or with a good social standing or anyone who is a cultural, scientific, or military figure, even those with a high standing in their family" might be subjected to the new punishments "if they make a comment prior or contrary to official views about the state of the affairs in the country whether by word of mouth or on social media."

The legislation also warns that in certain cases, such comments might be assessed as "spreading corruption on the Earth," which entails death sentence.

The website of the Iranian parliament has restricted access to this part of the law based on users IP to bar foreigners and Iranians living abroad from accessing it or possibly telling the rest of the world about what Iran is doing to restrict civil liberties. The error message says: "Access denied --The request has been blocked from your IP at your location! This is due to some security settings of the website."

Based on this new legislation, an event such as the murder of Mahsa Amini in police custody should not be discussed on social media or otherwise as long as there is no definitive official attestation. In other words, no one can contradict what the government says about all issues, including for example inflation. A complaint about high prices could be interpreted as instigating unrest.

Mousa Ghazanfarabadi, the chairman of the Majles Judiciary Committee told Etemad that the new legislation is still being reviewed and its aim is to include “fake news, lies and rumors” within the jurisdiction of article 512. He mentioned Mahsa Amini's case and said that anyone makes a comment about the matter which could be categorized as lies, rumors and fake news will be additionally sentenced to up to ten years of deprivation from their social rights, and will be barred from going back to their job.

The film festival is part of a series of events to mark the 44th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution marked by 10 days of state-sponsored ceremonies dubbed the decade of Fajr – which literally means dawn. 

The trio of festivals – along with a theater and a music festival – have faced boycotts by numerous artists and art enthusiasts in recent years, but the current wave of protests and the regime’s heavy-handed crackdown seems like the coup de grâce to the most significant propaganda gala of the Islamic Republic. 

Despite the government’s efforts to portray the events as popular as they used to be a decade ago, the theater festival was inaugurated in the sparsely attended Vahdat Hall this week.

It is ironic that even the most “prestigious” cultural events of the Islamic Republic are held in halls constructed prior to 1979 in the era of monarchy, as the clerical regime never truly invested in culture, and considers most of its representations un-Islamic except for a couple of weeks during the celebrations for the establishment of the Islamic Republic. 

Even though photos of the empty hall during the theater festival’s opening ceremony were reported even by state media and outlets affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, Mohammad Mehdi Esmaili, the Culture and Islamic Guidance minister, said that the event was welcomed by the people. 

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Since the beginning of the ongoing uprising in mid-September, many celebrities were banned, arrested or summoned by the judiciary for their solidarity with the current movement. Some of the most popular actors and artists even emigrated from the country to be able to express their support for the antigovernment protests freely and without fear of arrest. 

Many actors and filmmakers had announced their boycott of the festival weeks before the start of the event, prompting the authorities not to announce the films selected to be screened during. Something unprecedented that took place this year was that the tickets for the movies were sold without the names of the works, because the government feared that if it announced the flicks, more artists would announce their opposition to the event. Of course, their trick turned out to be ineffective as some actors actually announced their boycott after their films were selected for screening, such as Haniyeh Tavassoli. Most of the actors, actresses and even directors do not have a say in the screening their movies because almost all of the productions in Iran are sponsored by state organizations. 

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The festival had always been dominated by the works produced by government organizations and propaganda institutes but this year the level of audacity of the regime is even higher as authorities have announced that no movies that draw a grim portrait of the society were selected for screening. The committee tasked with selecting the movies is comprised of regime insiders, some of whom were not even film industry figures, such as Reza Pourhossein, a cultural manager and a professor of psychology at the University of Tehran. 

The secretaries of the festivals and their juries are also selected from the figures close to the regime and known for works that promote regime propaganda, such as the secretary of the film festival Mojtaba Amini, a producer who was involved in the attacks on the Saudi embassy when it was ransacked by IRGC’s basij militias in January 2016. The secretary of the Theater festival called those who boycott the event “cultural dictators” at the opening ceremony. 

The antigovernment protests, coupled with economic woes and political uncertainty, have clouded the cultural landscape of the country so much that the culture minister was reported asking theater directors and singers to start holding performances so that the regime can pretend the situation is back to normal. 

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Iranian Academic Mostafa Mehraeen said at a gathering of sociologists that Iran is facing an implosion and a civilizational revolution because of the people’s experience in the years before and after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. He called on officials to think about why the Islamic Republic has been turned into a fundamental evil during the past four decades.

Many Iranian academics and commentators have become increasingly vocal in their criticism of the authoritarian regime, its mismanagement of the state and deadly violations of human rights in recent weeks.

Meanwhile, Mehraeen criticized some of his peers and firebrand cleric Ahmad Alamolhoda for saying that no one was killed by security forces during the uprising and that the movement in Iran was motivated by sex and alcohol. He said those who have made those false comments are “ignorant.” Mehraeein further accused Iran’s rulers of dishonesty and said: “They have been lying for 40 years.”

He added that claims by officials about the protest movement being a riot by gunmen was also a lie.

Mehraeen questioned the Islamic Republic for regarding itself as a "sacred order" and said, "Yes, you were sacred only in the first year after the revolution."

The sociologist can well put himself in danger of getting arrested, as dozens of journalists, artists and writers are currently in prison.

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In another sharp remark, Mehraeein spoke about IRGC Commander Hossein Salami ordering Iranians "Not to take to the streets from tomorrow!" Mehraeein addressed Salami: "Do you own the nation? Do you own their bodies? Do you own the streets? Who are you and what is your status?"

He also recalled a move by members of the Islamic parliament who asked the hardliner Judiciary to execute detained protesters and said: "You foolish members of the parliament, you are supposed to be representing the people. What do you mean by saying that they should be executed?" He reminded the regime: "A political system is not all about the noose and hanging. It is not all about police, batons and repression!"

Mehraeein pointed out that one of the characteristics of the current protests is that they do not seek to disrupt the social order. "The protesters love their country and do not wish to start a civil war. That is why the conflict in restive provinces never turn into civil war because the ethnic people in those provinces seriously avoid any armed confrontation with the security forces. They want a revolution without bloodshed," he said.

During the past weeks, the Iranian Sociological Association has been holding several conferences to discuss the implications and the outlook of the Iranian protests that have been rocking the country for four months.

In his discussion about the pathology of civil protests, Iranian sociologist Ali Jafari separated the notion of culture from the idea of fabricated culture. For instance, when women reach a consensus on an issue such as hijab, that is culture, but ideological governments fabricate their own ideas as some kind of culture and try to impose that on the people. This is what we call fabricated culture, he said, which damages the society's cultural and social order.

The Association's website also featured an article by jailed sociologist Saeed Madani, written before the current protests, which argued that some social movements start without pre-planning or coordination.

Iranian sociologists had warned for years about the chances of protests similar to the Woman, Life Freedom movement, suddenly flaring up, but the regime never believed them. Even now when they have realized the predictive nature of sociological studies, they still keep academics such as Madani in jail and continue interrogating them and asking: How come you knew this and we didn't.