Clerics, Politicians Slam Secrecy Of Iran's Deals With Russia, China

Mohammad Fazeli, a professor of sociology at Beheshti University, and Arash Abazari, a philosophy professor at Sharif University, were dismissed in the last few days.

Abazari is well-known for his book Hegel's Ontology of Power: The Structure of Social Domination in Capitalism, which was published by Cambridge University Press. Fazeli’s works focus on sociology of politics and science, especially in the energy sector.

The Islamic Republic has conducted several ‘cleansing’ operations in universities, firing professors that it has deemed not committed to the regime.

The most widespread firings took place right after the 1979 revolution and was peaked again during the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who forced many professors into retirement.

Kaave Lajevardi, a fellow philosopher and translator, called it a disgrace for Iran’s education system, saying that Abazari is not tolerated while many are busy Islamizing the universities.

Abdonnaser Hemmati, the former head of Iran’s central bank who run for president last June, has protested to Fazeli’s firing and called on President Ebrahim Raisi to intervene.

Renowned reformist Abbas Abdi described such dismissals as part of a larger process to destroy the institution of science in Iran.

In an interview with ILNA on Saturday, Brigadier General Mehdi Hajian said several measures have been taken to improve the living conditions of law enforcement personnel.

“One of the main concerns of the general command is the livelihood of its staff and personnel”, he said, noting that negotiations are underway to provide further funding for the forces.

The news about several raises for security personnel comes as teachers, nurses, industrial workers and others have been protesting for higher salaries amid high inflation, but the government says it cannot afford to pay substantially higher salaries.

Food prices have risen by more than 60 percent in recent months, on top of high inflation in the previous three years. Government figures show that prices for 83 percent of basic food staples have reached a critical level. People living on salaries have cut back on nutritious food, such as meat, fruits and dairy products.

Earlier in the week, hundreds of firefighters held a demonstrationin Tehran to protest their poor living conditions, and last week hundreds of staff members from Iran’s judiciary department took to the streets in several cities while teachers and pensioners have held several rounds of nationwide protests.

"Those who have seen the 21-minute footage released by Ria Novosti know how Putin looks stressed during the meeting, tidying his tie twice, moving his legs and shoulders. Why? Because he feels this is a very important political meeting that is vital for his country," a seven-minute-long video-commentary by media researcher Mohammad Lesani claimed.

The video-commentary entitled "Historical Arrangement, Iranian Power and Authority" which was published Friday by Fars news website affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) was widely circulated by other government-controlled media outlets.

"On the other hand, you see Mr. Raisi's serenity who is speaking calmly without moving his hands and legs," the video went on to say.

Many Iranian social media users have interpreted the placement of a massive table to separate the two presidents in the meeting as an intentional act to imply "distance" and said it was a sign of disrespect that Putin was chewing gum while Raisi was speaking. They have also pointed out that unlike most official meetings, the flags of the two countries were nowhere to be seen in the hall.

While showing a photo of Putin's meeting with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nicol Pashinyan at the same table sitting a closer and facing the Russian president, the narrator said Putin had a "haughty" and "emperor-like" demeanor while Aliyev and Pashinyan looked as if they were being "politically humiliated".

The Fars video went to great lengths to justify the mise-en-scene in the room. Showing photos of Putin's meetings with other foreign dignitaries in the same hall, including his meetings with the former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the Venezuelan president Nicholas Maduro, the narrator said Putin meets foreign dignitaries in the same hall and "his important working meetings" at the same table.

"But the arrangement this time was a historical and unprecedented arrangement… Two political leaders are sitting at the two ends sides of the table…[resembling] balanced plates of a weighing scale," the video said.

"I wanted to make a response to those people who beat the drums of despair and think that the strategic agreements of our country with Russia, China, and other countries of the East …are supposedly equal to destroying our nation, identity, and Iran's power and authority," the narrator said in the video.

The publication of a photo of President Raisi praying at the same hall has also raised much controversy in social media. State media and hardliners say Raisi broke his meeting with the Russian president not to miss the noontime prayer and to display spirituality at a place where once atheists ruled.

Several Friday imams eulogized Raisi's move to stand to prayer at the Kremlin as a gesture of great significance. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's representative in Alborz province, Mohammad-Mehdi Hosseini-Hamedani, in his Friday sermon also predicted that Raisi may stand to prayer at the White House someday because his act of praying at the Kremlin "bore important messages".

Mohammad-Mehdi Hosseini-Hamedani, a cleric, said in his Friday Prayer that Raisi’s prayers at Kremlin conveyed a very important message.

A photo of Raisi praying at the Kremlin during his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin has been advertised by many officials and followers of the Iranian president, including his wife that described it as a revelation of spirituality.

The photo has been used extensively in what appears to be a publicity campaign for Raisi amid public criticism of his government's efforts to expand relations with Russia and China. Among Iranians the names of both countries are associated with communism and atheism.

During their Friday Prayer sermons, representatives of Khamenei all over the country praised the image, calling it an important event.

Mohammad Ali Nekounam, the Friday Prayer leader of Shahrekord, described Raisi’s prayers at Kremlin as a “conquest” and the Friday Imam of Esfahan said it showed that “We only rely on God”.

The contents of Friday Prayer sermons delivered by Khamenei's local representative in various cities are dictated by two state bodies close to Khamenei's office, officially known as "The Policy-making Council for Friday Prayer Imams" and the "Friday Prayer Headquarters," both dominated by hardliner clerics.

During his Friday Prayer sermon, Alamolhoda – Ali Khamenei’s representative in Mashhad and father-in-law of Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi – said that women with loose hijab should feel the hatred, stressing that “expressing hatred and disgust for a woman without hijab is a divine duty”.

“People should solve the problem, not the police”, he said. His remark could be seen as a green light for religious zealots to confront women in the streets and cause harm.

Similar calls for crackdown on those who fail to comply with compulsory hijab by other hardliners sparked a series of acid attacks on women in Esfahan in 2014.

He also talked about an official ban on women not to enter soccer stadiums, saying, “Stadiums are a place of excitement”, stating that women should not be excited in the presence of men.

His comments came less than a month after hundreds of Iranian social media users protested to compulsory hijab and the ideology the government is imposing on them, trending the hashtag #LetUsTalk.

A report by the parliament's research center in 2018 said the number of Iranians who believed in mandatory hijab had waned. According to the report those who considered the hijab a value that could be stipulated in law had fallen from 85 percent in the early 1980s to around 35 percent.