Iranian FM’s Visit To Qatar, Oman Seen As Indirect Talks With US

“Who and what entities are supposed to promote Islam and the rules of Sharia if the main job of religious seminaries (Ḥowza-ye elmiyeh) is engagement in politics? You can’t say that the main job of seminaries is engaging in politics and [at the same time say] the main job of seminaries is promotion of religion,” Asr-e Iran asked Ayatollah Mohsen Araki in a commentary June 15. 

Ḥowza-ye elmiyeh in Persian means a religious seminary where senior clerics, usually grand ayatollahs, teach various Islamic subjects including theology and law, according to the tenants of Shiism, to future clerics.

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The city of Qom is home to the largest seminaries in the country but there are similar establishments in other cities including Najafabad in Esfahan Province and Mashhad, the capital of Khorasan-e Razavi. There are nearly three hundred thousand clerics in Iran's seminaries.

Asr-e Iran, which has moderate conservative leanings but no known political affiliations and is usually more critical of authorities than similar news websites, argued that engagement in politics is permissible when promotion of religion requires it but that does not mean its main mandate is interference in politics. 

The commentary also listed several prominent Shia academics of the highest rank who never got directly engaged in politics including Grand Ayatollahs Mohammad Fazel-Lankarani and Mohammad-Taghi Bahjat in Iran and Ali Sistani in Iraq. 

“Like any other citizen, Ayatollah Araki has the right to become a political activist, get engaged in politics and even hold political office. No one has the right to deny this to him and others…There is no need for him to reduce the mandate of religious seminaries…to engagement in politics to [justify] the political activities of himself and other clerics,” the commentary said. 

Araki, born into a family of notable Shia clerics in Najaf, Iraq, teaches at Qom Seminary. He has served as the head of the World Forum for Proximity of Islamic Schools of Thought by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei since 2012. 

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Araki was appointed as a member of the Expediency Council by Khamenei in 2022. He has also been a member of the Assembly of Experts since 1998, which is responsible for overseeing the performance of the supreme leader and election of a new leader if he passes away.

Many clerics in Iran hold government offices and the government also annually allocates tens of millions of dollars to religious seminaries and other religious institutions that play the role of its propaganda arm.

A report, claimed by an opposition group to have been hacked from the Iranian presidency servers, shows that the budget for seminaries increased by 96% last year. Iranian media had reported in January that the budget for religious organizations would increase by 130 percent, reaching $500 million, while at least 20 million more Iranians are now considered poor compared to two years ago.

In a recent speech, Iran's top Sunni cleric Mowlavi Abdolhamid said clerics and religious seminaries must not be funded by the government to remain independent and critical.

“Clerics must be independent and have their own opinions to be able to speak the truth and call the government to enjoin what is good and forbid it from doing what is wrong,” Abdolhamid said in another fiery Friday sermon in the southeastern city of Zahedan on June 3.

The ban comes as Western powers seek to defuse tensions with Iran and a few weeks after Tehran released several Europeans from prison, including two French nationals. French President Emmanuel Macron held a 90-minute call with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on June 10.

The Paris-based National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), political arm of the People's Mojahedin Organisation of Iran (PMOI), has held frequent rallies in the French capital over the years, often attended by high profile former US, European and Arab officials critical of the Islamic Republic.

In February, the NCRI attracted several thousand people to an event in central Paris, and plans its annual rally on July 1.

However, given a recent spate of mass anti-government protests in Iran over the death of a 22-year-old woman while in morality police custody, a "tense context" had developed posing "very significant security risks" to NCRI gatherings, said the document, a letter from Paris police chief Laurent Nunez.

Therefore, "this meeting, organized every year since 2008, cannot be held..." read the letter, sent to the NCRI rally's organizing committee.

In response to an inquiry, Paris police issued a statement to Reuters confirming that they had informed the committee of the decision to ban the rally as it could "generate disturbances to public order due to the geopolitical context".

"Moreover, given the terrorist risk cannot be neglected, the holding of such an event would make its security but also the security of sensitive guests extremely complex," said the statement.

A senior NCRI official condemned the decision when asked about it by Reuters, before the police confirmation.

"If French authorities take such a stance, it will represent a brazen disregard for democratic principles, caving in to the ruling religious tyranny’s blackmail and hostage-taking," Shahin Gobadi, a member of the NCRI's Foreign Affairs Committee, said.

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Foreign Support For Iran Unrest

Mahsa Amini's death in custody sparked months of nationwide protests, prompting Tehran to accuse the United States, its Western allies and Israel of exploiting the unrest to try to destabilize the Islamic Republic.

Thousands of supportive rallies have been held around the world since her death September, although the nationwide unrest has subsided after Iranian security police clamped down on it.

To dampen rising tensions, the United States has been holding talks with Iran to sketch out steps that could limit the disputed Iranian nuclear program, release some detained US citizens and unfreeze some Iranian assets abroad, according to Iranian and Western officials.

Abortive Plot

Nunez's letter put the July 1 NCRI rally in the context of the abortive plot led by Vienna-based Iranian diplomat Assadolah Assadi in October 2018 and three others.

Assadi, who French officials said was running an Iranian state intelligence network and was acting on orders from Tehran, was sentenced in Belgium to a 20-year prison term in 2021. He was exchanged in May for four Europeans held in Iran.

"This attempted attack, which underlines the operational capacities for attacking the PMOI, falls into a series of violent and lethal operations in France and Europe, in the form of assassinations and kidnappings of Iranian opposition figures," the letter said, without providing details.

"Partner countries have in this regard recently mentioned many planned violent attacks, potentially targeting Iranian opposition figures."

Nunez also said in his letter to the NCRI that given the group's rally would attract several hundred important foreign dignitaries and PMOI members coming from overseas, "securing the event would be particularly complicated".

There have been three attacks on an NCRI building in a Paris suburb since the end of May, the letter said, and these were under investigation. Two sources close to the investigation said gunshots, petrol bombs and other incendiary devices had been used to target the building. It was unclear who was responsible.

The letter said there was also an elevated risk of conflict between the NCRI and rival Iranian opposition groups at the rally, although there had been no incidents at past rallies.

Tehran has long called for a crackdown on NCRI activities in Paris, Washington and the Saudi capital Riyadh. The group, whose sources of funding and support are unclear, is regularly lambasted by Iranian state media.

Reuters Report

Haalvsh website, which covers the events in Sistan-Baluchestan province, reported on Monday that the security guards of Makki Mosque in which Mowlavi Abdolhamid makes his sermons, arrested a man in the guise of a religious student who wanted to assassinate the Sunni leader.

“The person, who is a Baluch and a resident of Delgan region in Sistan and Baluchistan province, has been sleeping and worshiping in the mosque for a long time in the dress of a student of religious studies,” explained Haalvsh.

According to the report, the suspect admitted that he received a salary of 150 million rials per week since the beginning of his operation.

In recent months, Abdolhamid has been under pressure by Iranian security to end his weekly protests and critical sermons on Fridays.

Since September during ongoing protests following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody, Mowlavi Abdolhamid has made fiery speeches against the heavy crackdown and killing of protesters, calling government actions "felony".

He has also called for holding a referendum in Iran with the presence of international observers.

The Sunni city of Zahedan in the southeastern Sistan-Baluchestan province has been witnessing protests against repressions and discrimination in the province following mass Friday prayers during the past thirteen weeks.

The announcement, made by Ahmad Mahmoudzadeh, an official at the Ministry of Education, came on the back of orders of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei blaming “seditions, riots and creating insecurity in the streets” after schools and universities have been at the forefront of protests since September.

Mahmoudzadeh said: “After passing a 60-hour course, teachers must attend 60 hours of training related to educational knowledge, as well as general and professional competence within five years. Every year, after passing all these courses, they can get a professional competence card.”

Khamenei had previously demanded that the authorities make sure the "selection rules" of teachers "do not weaken."

Ziyad al-Nakhalah, the leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), has been in Iran along with several other senior members and leaders of Palestinian militant groups since last week, culminating in the arrival of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran on Monday.

The groups, both designated terrorist outfits by the European Union, the US, the UK, Canada, Israel, and several other countries, have been receiving financial support from the Islamic Republic, presumably for wreaking havoc in Israel, or what the regime calls “resistance.” 

Nakhalah, who has met with several senior Iranian officials since last week, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, expressed gratitude for the Islamic Republic’s support during his Sunday meeting with President Ebrahim Raisi, without elaborating on the amount of support. 

According to Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in April, Iran is the “driving force” of a recent multi-front escalation with Israelis through its proxies across the region, funding Hamas – that rules the Gaza Strip -- with $100 million annually with additional funding worth tens of millions of dollars going to the second largest terror group in the Palestinian enclave, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Galant said the regime also provides Hezbollah in Lebanon with $700 million a year, as well as “knowledge and strategic weaponry” such as precision-guided munitions.

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The groups regularly send leaders or delegations to Iran to ask for more money than their annual allowance, and usually the tensions heighten around the time of such trips either as complaisance to the Islamic Republic or a gimmick to justify further funding. 

Alireza Nourizadeh, a regional analyst, told Iran International that the regime is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to create chaos in Israel, as it views it as its most important enemy. He claimed that the regime is using the social divide in Israel as an opportunity to increase tensions, noting that the policies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have created such an opportunity. 

Earlier in the day, five Palestinians were killed as heavy clashes broke out between gunmen and Israeli troops in the city of Jenin. An Israeli helicopter gunship carried out strikes in order for seven wounded Israeli soldiers to be evacuated from the battle zone after their vehicle was hit by an explosive device. 

Claiming that Palestinians have never been closer to defeating Israel, Iran’s president said during the meeting with Nakhalah that "With Jihad and resistance, we will approach victory against the occupying Zionist regime day by day." 

Raisi reiterated the Islamic Republic's support for “the oppressed Palestinian nation and their just cause," which he said, "remains the cause of all Muslims."

Jaber Rajabi, political analyst and activist, told Iran International that although the Islamic Republic seeks to portray itself as sympathetic to the Palestinians and championing their cause, it never supports Palestinians who seek peace and stability, such as the Palestine Liberation Organization, and only supports warmongers. 

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Rajabi said that the Islamic Republic is not committed to what he describes as the Palestinian cause, noting that the regime views the Palestinian issue as a bargaining chip. Among the few cards that Iran's regime can play in the international arena is by fomenting unrest in Israel, he claimed, adding that the regime believes it can only progress if there is a crisis. And since the détente with Saudi Arabia, Iran has to reduce the level of tensions in the Persian Gulf, so it has to create chaos in Israel. 

According to him, the Islamic Republic is against the two-state solution, the only strategy that can reconcile the opposing sides in Israel, and therefore it would not support the Palestinian groups that favor this option, which is also backed by most of the Palestinian civilians.

He added that since Khamenei announced that the West Bank should be armed, the regime is making the best use of tensions there, most notably via the Islamic Jihad group. He is also of the opinion that the reason Nakhalah and Haniyeh are both in Iran is that the regime wants to resolve the differences between the two group so they can unite against Israel, considering the fact that in recent tensions with Israel, Hamas did not engage and the Islamic Jihad was the only group firing missiles towards Israeli cities.