Citizen Reports And Images Indicate Low Turnout In Iran Voting

While the Iranian regime heavily relies on Beijing as its primary oil customer, the actual data on bilateral economic relations appears less promising for the sanctions-stricken country.

China's foreign trade statistics for 2023 reveal that Beijing's largest trade volume is with the European Union, reaching $783 billion last year. Following the EU are major economies such as the US ($664 billion), Japan ($318 billion), South Korea, and others.

This overall picture will most probably not appeal to the Iranian regime sympathizers who have frequently lauded Tehran-Beijing ties as a sign of Iran’s foreign policy success; they have to be very patient to get to Iran’s name on the list.

Iran's placement as China's 38th trading partner, with trade volume not exceeding $32 billion, falls significantly behind several neighboring and regional rivals. Saudi Arabia, for instance, boasts a trade volume with China of $107 billion, followed by the UAE, Iraq, Turkey, and Oman.

Next in the region are the UAE ($95 billion), Iraq ($50 billion), Turkey ($43 billion) and Oman ($35 billion). Qatar, Kuwait, Pakistan and Egypt are the only regional countries whose volume of trade with China is less than Iran’s.

Iran Economist news website covered China’s foreign trade data in 2023 and Iran’s meager share in it, ironically calling it “the new achievement” of the Iranian government.

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Faraz Daily, an online newspaper, warned that decline in trade with China is just a symptom which reflects a much enormous problem: Iran’s decline share of the world trade. According to the newspaper, Iran’s share of world trade has alarmingly decreased to %0.24 in 2022.

Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, economist and the founder of the Bourse & Bazaar Foundation, a think-tank focusing on economic diplomacy in the Middle East and Central Asia, remarked on X that “Chinese exports to Iran have fallen significantly since their 2014 peak” while Beijing’s trade with Moscow has grown.

Many observers contend that China has over the past years considered Iran as an instrument through which it can boost its leverage in the region. According to Amin Saikal, emeritus professor of Middle Eastern, Central Asian and Islamic Studies at the Australian National University, “in befriending Iran and Afghan theocracies, China has positioned itself to be able to extend its influence across West Asia, given Tehran’s formidable proxy presence in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.”

Despite this, Iranian officials have made numerous concessions to China, including granting contracts for infrastructure projects in Tehran, a move criticized by Ahmad Khorram, former Roads and Transportation Minister, as detrimental to local expertise.

Earlier this month, Tehran’s municipality announced that China will soon start building housing units in the capital. Mayor Alireza Zakani said several contracts have been signed with Chinese companies to revamp the capital’s infrastructure, including construction and transportation projects, at the expense of local businesses amidst a crippling economic crisis.

Rejecting the deal as an insult to the local expertise, Ahmad Khorram, former Roads and Transportation Minister, warned that “we have given China privileges that are unprecedented in our country.” According to the former minister, Tehran provides Beijing with all these privileges to guarantee its support in the UN Security Council.

Both China and Russia have collaborated with the US over banning Iran’s nuclear program and were the first countries to back the Security Council’s resolutions against Iran, he stressed.

The rial sank to a low of 592,000 against the US dollar, which signifies a more than 17-percent drop since early January when tensions rose in the Middle East.

The dollar has doubled against the rial since March 2022, after Iranian hardliners established control over the government and nuclear negotiations with the United States and its European allies failed to make any progress.

The Euro traded at 640,000 and the British pound near 750,000 rials on Tehran’s black market on Friday.

The rial, which has steadily fallen since the 1979 revolution, began a steep dive in 2018 when the United States withdrew from the JCPOA nuclear deal and imposed oil export as well as banking sanctions on Iran. The currency traded at 70 rials per dollar in 1978.

The significant depreciation of the rial has exacerbated inflationary pressures in the past five years, with millions of people falling below the poverty line. Official government figures indicate more than 40 percent annual inflation, while many in Iran believe the real figure is higher.

The economic crisis has damaged the Islamic government’s legitimacy in the eyes of voters, who are expected to shun the ongoing elections according to observers in Iran and several independent polling groups.

Election of a new parliament and the Assembly of Experts, which is tasked with choosing a new Supreme Leader, is underway in Iran amid forecasts of very low turnout. Many voters disillusioned by years of economic decline and more restrictions on freedom are expected to stay home, despite intense regime propaganda to boost participation.

Six people were detained in Rezvanshahr in Gilan province, 15 were arrested for illegal campaigning activities around polling stations in Kerman, and at least 10 in Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad province.

According to the prosecutor of Yasouj, the provincial capital Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad, one security officer was shot in the leg in Dena district and the assailant was arrested.

In Ardestan, Esfahan province, 12 people have been arrested since Thursday night on charges related to the election, the city’s governor said. According to authorities, the offenses range from disturbing public order to specific violations related to the electoral process.

The prosecutor of Golestan province has also announced the arrest of several people for electoral fraud by purchasing votes in the region. He emphasized that “candidates attempting to undermine the integrity of the elections through vote buying and selling will face severe consequences."

On Friday, the cyber-crime center of the intelligence organization of the police in Khorasan Razavi said that 11 Instagram accounts were identified in the province for “disturbing the public’s peace of mind, propaganda against the regime, and encouragement to boycotting the elections.” Judicial action has been taken against the admins of these pages, the statement said.

According to West Azarbaijan police force commander Rahim Jahanbakhsh, 50 political dissidents in the province were arrested for posting calls online for a boycott of the elections.

Measures which were adopted in February 2023 and came into effect from March 1, 2024, will continue to be implemented until February 28, 2025, the Canadian government said.

According to the portal of the Canadian government, applicants for extension of current temporary resident status in Canada or change of status will continue to be exempted from application or biometric fees. Those with Canadian citizenship and permanent residence who live in Iran can continue to apply for some documents including limited validity Canadian passport and citizenship certificate could apply for these documents for free.

In February 2023, the Canadian government announced the adoption of these measures to support Iranian temporary residents “in light of the gross and systematic human rights violations being committed by the Iranian regime” during the crackdown on Woman, Life, Freedom protestors.

The measures adopted last year were meant to make it easier for these Iranians to extend their temporary status in Canada and to move between temporary streams so they could continue studying, working, or visiting family by applying for a new permit from inside Canada.

Titled "White Torture," the documentary, showcased at an event organized by the Nobel Foundation, illuminated the isolation techniques employed in Iranian prisons to break prisoners and highlights the plight of political detainees enduring prolonged periods of solitary confinement, as recounted by Mohammadi's interviews.

Initially screened online by human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, in November 2021, the documentary has since been presented in numerous cities worldwide.

Mohammadi, who herself endured four periods of solitary confinement, denounces it as a "cruel and inhumane punishment." In her book, "White Torture: Interviews with Iranian Women Prisoners," she vows to tirelessly advocate for its abolition.

The outspoken rights defender who is currently serving a 12-year sentence has also written a book entitled White Torture: Interviews with Iranian Women Prisoners “I will not rest until it is abolished,” she said in her book.

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Originally published in London in 2022, Mohammadi's book, a two-volume anthology featuring interviews with fellow inmates, has been translated into English, Swedish, German, and French.

To mark the release of her book White Torture in France, Le Monde sent Mohammadi questions via an underground network of activists. Two weeks later, Mohammadi’s answers to the questions were received.

“I consider the practice of ‘white torture,’ in other words incarceration in solitary confinement by the government, to be unjust and brutal. The solitary confinement cell is the ‘mother’ of all executions in Iran,” she told Le Monde.

“In the course of my work on human rights and against the death penalty, I have learned that many of those executed, were subjected to the physical, mental and psychological torture of incarceration in solitary confinement. They made false confessions which then formed the basis, unlawful, of their death sentence,” The outspoken campaigner against the death penalty added.

The families and lawyers of several of the nine Woman, Life, Freedom protesters executed by the regime since December 2022, have alleged that the victims were subjected to various physical and psychological tortures including solitary confinement to make false confessions against themselves which were then used as proof of their “crimes” and eventual execution.

The torture-induced confessions of protesters including Mohsen Shekari and Majidreza Rahnavard were shown on state television even before their trials were held.

White torture, in the sense used by Mohammadi, is different from white room torture, another form of psychological torture technique aimed at complete sensory deprivation and isolation that can lead to hallucinations and psychosis.

In the latter form, which has also been employed in the prisons of the Islamic Republic, the prisoner is held for long stretches of time in a soundproofed cell with white walls and no windows, given white clothing and food such as rice, and is often deprived from sleep. Amir-Abbas Fakhravar, then a freelance journalist, was subjected to this kind of torture at Evin Prison for eight months in 2004.