Iran's Exiled Prince Makes Historic Move To Visit Israel

Police said Sunday that on the first day of the implementation of its new hijab enforcement plan it had warned 3,500 businesses about hijab infringements on their premises. They also shut down 137 shops as well as 18 restaurants and wedding hall-gardens that were repeat offenders and referred their cases to the judiciary for further action.

According to police spokesman Brigadier Saeed Montazerolmahdi, police also warned owners of several hundred vehicles whose drivers or passengers were spotted hijabless by text messages.

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“The police force will enforce the law against a small number of people who look like they have arrived from a different planet, are unaware of the norms and traditions of the country, and break the law,” he said.

Cycling “hijabless” at Tehran’s Keshavarz Boulevard on April 16.

Police officials warned last week that the campaign against women who do not abide by the hijab rules would begin Saturday with the help of public CCTV cameras.

Many women, however, have shared photos of being in the streets, parks and other public areas without hijab on social media despite the harsh warnings.

Since Khamenei’s declaration of “hijablessness” being not only religiously but also politically forbidden, Iranian officials have focused on the hijab issue despite the many other problems such as high inflation and corruption that the country is facing.

Workers and retirees who resumed their scattered protests after the New Year holidays in early April complain that their dire circumstances are being ignored at the cost of re-establishing the regime’s control over women for hijab. “Bridling inflation was only an empty slogan,” protesting retirees in Shushtar in Khuzestan province chanted Sunday.

Protesting retirees in Shushtar chanting “Bridling inflation was only an empty slogan”

Meanwhile, students staged sit-ins in several universities in Tehran in protest to officials cracking down on women for hijab, using harsh punitive actions against dissident students.

In recent days authorities have denied entrance to women whose tunics were considered as “too short” or for wearing make-up in some universities. Punitive actions such as suspensions, for as long as two years, for hijab and political activities have also been reported in several universities.

“Stop suffocation and suppression in universities” and “Freedom of choice over hijab is the Iranian women’s right”, were some of the placards protesting students held at the psychology and educational sciences faculty of Tehran University.

“Schoolgirls are being poisoned, teachers are in prison, and all they care about is hijab!” protesting students chanted at the social sciences faculty in the same university.

Girls behind the gates of Rasht Azad University waiting for inspection of their appearance before entering.

In a statement Saturday, fifteen prominent Iranian lawyers and rights activists warned the government over its “suppressive policy” of imposing hijab and said a truth finding committee of the United Nations would be required to investigate the harms caused by these policies.

The statement signed by lawyers and human rights activists from inside Iran and abroad including Nasrin Sotoudeh and other rights defenders have urged that UN human rights sanctions should be imposed on those involved in violence against women for hijab.

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“Unable to establish justice and equality of women and men as the most basic of legal principles, the Islamic Republic is expanding the suppression of women in contradiction to basic human and civil rights, by forging new terms such as ‘politically haram’ while continuing its clear repressive policies,” the statement said.

“Politically haram” is a term first used by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on April 4. “Discarding hijab is haram (sin) based on Sharia and also politically,” Khamenei emphatically declared at a meeting with state officials while claiming that foreign intelligence services were encouraging Iranian women to disobey mandatory hijab.

The judiciary’s Mizan Online website reported Sunday that a commander was sentenced to 10 years in prison, while nine others were sentenced to between one and three years.

The names of none of the senior military and government officials could be seen in the list, while families of victims demand to know which senior officers issued the order to fire at the plane.

“Examining this case has been one of the most important, sensitive and complex judicial processes in recent years,” added the website.

According to Mizan, the commander's action "was due to his ignorance of the situation and his misplaced belief that the discovered target was hostile."

The PS752 was shot down by two air-defense missiles fired by the IRGC as it took off from Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport. Hours earlier, the IRGC had fired more than a dozen missiles at Iraqi bases hosting US troops in retaliation for the killing of its Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimani in a US airstrike in Baghdad just five days earlier.

All 176 passengers and crew, including 63 Canadians as well as 82 Iranian citizens died in the disaster.

On December 28, 2022, the Coordination Group of countries affected by the tragic incident announced an important step in the pursuit of accountability in accordance with international law. Members of the group Britain, Canada, Sweden, and Ukraine urged Iran to agree to arbitration as Tehran has stonewalled over an independent investigation and proper compensation.

The Supreme Leader’s remarks were contradictory, as he told senior military commanders and officials that the “enemies are vincible” yet blamed such enemies for the main problems of the country.

"The enemies can be defeated with all their seemingly solid calculations and military might,” he said, without elaborating on his claims.

Despite widespread unrest -- ignited by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini -- as well as the country’s grave economic and social crises, Khamenei voiced his satisfaction with what he called as years of continuous progress by the Iranian Armed Forces.

With an economy in crisis, a restive population and little to show after 34 years of presiding over an ever-unpopular regime, the military is the only institution he can praise, because they have made some advances in developing weapons.

Khamenei maintained that the armed forces should not focus their efforts on the actions of “weak elements” but should be prepared and vigilant against the behind-the-scene plotters. “Arrogant powers wage a conflict from behind the scenes wherever it benefits them,” using the Islamic Republic’s jargon for the US and Western powers.

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Paying no heed to the fast-paced dynamics of political change in the countries that Khamenei calls enemies of the Islamic Republic, he said, “Paying close attention to the enemy's five- or ten-year schemes is necessary, but mid- and long-term plots should be considered and monitored.”

This statement, more than anything else, revealed Khamenei’s fascination with conspiracy theories, imagining that the United States and European powers have long-term plans for decades to come.

Another conspiracy theory put forth by the octogenarian autocrat was why the US military’s involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, describing them as “the two wars America started in the east and west of Iran about two decades ago.” He claimed, “Americans had interests in Iraq and Afghanistan, but their ultimate goal was the Islamic Iran, and due to the solid foundations of the Islamic Revolution, they failed in their adventures as well as their ultimate goal.”

While Khamenei called the United States feeble, he also said it was imperative not to underestimate the enemy. “At no stage should one ignore the enemy's machinations and plots.”

Since the beginning of the 'Women, Life, Liberty’ movement in Iran last September -- the boldest challenge the regime has ever faced – Khamenei has been blaming other countries for the popular uprising.

His strange denial of the nationwide revolt against the regime and his unfounded accusations are manifestations of his usual tactic of blaming others and refusing to take responsibility.

While more than 500 people have been killed by the regime's security forces since the start of the uprising, he has failed to utter a single sympathetic word about the victims.

In February, Khamenei for the first time admitted that there are disagreements between the people and the regime, nonetheless, his state of denial about dissent appears to continue as he repeated that sowing discord and creating differences is the "enemy's strategy."

Months of protests in the streets against the government have left a fragmented society in Iran where trust in the regime is at its lowest point.

‘Resistance front’ is Islamic Republic’s jargon for it allies and proxies in the region, including Palestinian militant groups.

Tasnim News Agency wrote Sunday that Saudi Arabia is rapidly restoring relations with the resistance axis “disappointing Israel which hoped to normalize relations with the kingdom”.

After reaching a deal with Tehran to reopen embassies, Saudis sent a delegation to Yemen to end the eight-year-long war, added the daily.

Referring to the invitation of the Syrian foreign minister and a senior Hamas delegation to Riyadh, Tasnim claimed that Saudis are opening a new chapter in their relations with the resistance axis.

After years of hostility that fueled conflicts across the Middle East, Tehran and Riyadh agreed to end their diplomatic rift and re-open embassies in a major deal facilitated by China last month.

Beijing's role in the breakthrough between Tehran and Riyadh shook up the dynamics in the Middle East, where the United States was for decades the main backer of Saudi Arabia.

Iran’s regime that is shunned by the West and isolated by US sanctions has heralded the revival of ties with Riyadh as a significant victory and a defeat for the United States in the region.

Saudi Arabia cut ties with Iran in 2016 after its embassy in Tehran was stormed by mob of hardliners supporters of the regime during a dispute between the two countries over Riyadh's execution of a Shiite Muslim cleric.

Ali Farnam, an expert at the research center of the Iranian parliament said Sunday that housing starts declined between 2018 and 2022 as Iran was hit by US sanctions and its economy declined.

According to him, the increase in the price of construction materials, wages and the like all contributed to the price hike.

He further emphasized that house builders in Iran are not very interested in new construction because 80% of builders are now worried about selling what they already have, as people cannot afford new homes.

This comes as President Ebrahim Raisi had promised during his campaign to build one million housing units annually; a promise that was described as "impractical" by housing market experts and some politicians.

The average price of one square meter (11 sq feet) of housing in Tehran is around 600 million rials ($1,200), but the monthly minimum wage (without benefits) is around $120.

Donyaye Eghtesad (World of Economy) daily said in a report last week that in the first days of Iranian new year (starting March 21), the number of newly built units offered for sale increased slightly, but the housing market transactions did not return to normal.

Rents and home prices have climbed as much as inflation and the rise of the US dollar in recent months. Rents have reached a level that an ordinary worker must hold two or even three jobs just to afford basic housing.