Large Drop In Iran’s Steel Production Blamed On Russia

In a message from the notorious Qarchak Women’s Penitentiary to the PEN Melbourne which on Tuesday held a gathering in solidarity with Iranian imprisoned writers, human rights defenders Narges Mohammadi and Alieh Motallebzadeh, warned about the social, political, and economic situation in Iran.

“As a religious dictatorship and anti-women regime, the Islamic Republic has created numerous crises for the country and its people. Extensive and systematic economic corruption of the regime, plundering the wealth of the nation, and costly international policies of the regime have paralyzed the economic foundations of the country and social and political suppression has weakened the civil society,” they said in their message.

They stressed that Iranian civil society activists have for decades fought to establish lasting democracy and social justice. “We expect you and the international community to support the efforts made by the Iranian civil society and its activists in any way possible,” they wrote.

Mohammadi and Motallebzadeh, both of whom are cofounders and chairs of the Defenders of Human Rights Center, say judicial authorities have been holding them at Qarchak Penitentiary with ordinary criminals including those serving time for murder and drug trafficking.

Health and sanitary conditions at Qarchak, located forty kilometers to the south of the capital Tehran, are very poor in comparison with prisons such as Evin where most political prisoners and prisoners of conscience are usually held.

The message was read at the event along with works of Iranian. literary figures. In the past few years PEN Australia has held several events in solidarity with Iranian writers.

The gathering also heard a message from imprisoned journalist Keyvan Samimi, head of the banned Association for Freedom of Press, sent from Semnan Prison, about 210 km from Tehran. The 74-year-old Samimi is currently the oldest political prisoner in Iran.

Iranian authorities have increased their pressure on civil society and political activists in recent months. They often harass or arrest family members of activists to pressure them to silence them.

In several tweets on Wednesday blogger and freedom of speech activist Hossein Ronaghi said security agents had stormed his father’s house and arrested his father and brother for a few hours. Ronaghi said their electronic devices were confiscated. “You have my address and know where I am. I am not going to escape or leave. Why are you harassing my family then?” he asked.

“In a country like Iran, death comes very cheap to intellectuals, freedom-loving people, and those who fight for freedom of expression … We, with total knowledge of the risks, will emphasise our obligation, which is to fight for freedom of expression and against censorship. But we expect all our friends, writers, intellectuals, and those who fight for freedom of expression around the world to support us,” prominent dissident Iranian poet and filmmaker Baktash Abtin said in an interview with PEN Sydney in June 2020.

Abtin died in January 2022 after contracting COVID-19 for the second time at Tehran’s Evin Prison. PEN International said it held the Iranian authorities fully responsible for Abtin’s death.

The meeting of the House of Commons subcommittee was held on Tuesday and attended by several political and human rights activists – including the spokesman of the Association of Families of Flight PS752 Victims, Hamed Esmaeilion.

Kasra Aarabi, a senior analyst in the Extremism Policy Unit at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, who specializes in Iran and Shiite Islamist Extremism, said that currently Revolutionary Guard officers have key administerial roles in the government of President Ebrahim Raisi, which seeks to consolidate the Islamic Republic’s grip across the Middle East. “Raisi is mandated to purify the regime,” he said, adding that the IRGC is the force behind this change.

He mentioned Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi – an IRGC general wanted by Interpol for his suspected role in the 1994 AMIA Jewish center bombing in Argentina that killed 85 people and injured over 300 – and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian – for his alleged affiliation with IRGC’s Quds Force – as examples of such appointments.

“Domestically, the IRGC is preparing to unleash a new wave of Islamization on the Iranian people to eradicate Western and Persian aspects of the Iranian society,” he said, noting that the majority of Iranians want a secular government, manifested on the streets with protests “growing in size and scale.”

“The 1999 unrest took place in three cities and seven people were killed. In 2009, protests were in 10 cities and around 100 people were killed. Iran’s protests in November 2019, however, saw protests in over 100 towns and cities and as many as 1,500 civilians were killed in just a few days,” he added. “Canada can and should support the Iranian people,” he concluded.

Author Maral Karimi said social instability in Iran is going to get worse in the foreseeable future, highlighting that “Canada’s commitment to democracy within its borders and beyond make it a moral and political imperative to support the organic and democratic movements” such as protests by Iranian teachers, drivers, laborers, and other sectors of the society.

Kylie Moore-Gilbert, an academic previously jailed in Iran for over two years, also recounted her ordeal at the hands of IRGC in Islamic Republic’s prisons, as well as gross violations of human rights towards Iranian political prisoners.

Ali Ehsassi, a member of the House of Commons, underlined that the Revolutionary Guards are responsible for many horrific developments in the Middle East and the repression of civil society in Iran.

Another member of the House, Arnold Viersen, also criticized the government for not designating the Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization and not taking any specific action to hold it accountable for its crimes, including the intentional downing of the Ukraine Airlines Flight PS752.

The airliner was shot down by two air-defense missiles fired by the IRGC on January 8, 2020, as it took off from Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport.

Esmaeilion, who lost his wife and daughter in the plane crash and has been campaigning for justice for the families of the victims ever since, said that 30 months have passed since the IRGC committed this “heinous crime over the skies of Tehran”, criticizing “Canada’s tepid and cautious approach to pursuing justice against the government of Iran.”

Not only has the Islamic Republic refused to cooperate to shed light on the incident, but also “it has systematically lied and misled to successfully impede the emergence of the factual matrix that led to this crime,” he said.

"Apart from deliberately obfuscating [the investigations], the Iranian government and the IRGC have subjected the relatives of the victims to crushing psychological pressure,” Esmaeilion said.

The inflation rate reported by the Statistical Center of Iran (SCI) pertained to point-to-point calculation of rising prices, comparing the last Iranian calendar month of Khordad that ended June 20 with the same month in 2021.

Based on figures announced by SCI on June 22, overall point-to-point inflation rose by 52.5 percent, while non-food goods and services rose by 36.8 percent compared to the same month in 2021.

In early May, the government decided to end food import subsidies in place since 2018, that was allegedly abused by corrupt officials and businessmen to divert cheap dollars provided by the government, for non-essential imports.

The program of import subsidies cost the government $9-15 billion a year, depending on widely diverging figures quoted by different officials.

When the Iranian rial began to nosedive in early 2018, the government decided to offer cheap dollars for importing essential goods and commodities, such as wheat, animal feed, medicines, and a range of other items.

But rial’s decline continued without reprieve with the currency losing value ninefold by April 2022, as United States’ sanctions on Iranian oil exports and international banking imposed in 2018 continued.

Compared with the previous month this year (April21-May 20), the inflation index rose by 13.2 percent. But the shocking price jump was for the food sector with a 36.8 percent jump in one month.

However, the most politically significant and sensitive price increases were for cooking oil, bread and cereals.

Cooking oil jumped by 200 percent in one month and 250 percent compared with the same month in 2021. Bread and cereals jumped by 93.8 percent in one year and almost 20 percent compared to the previous 30-day period.

Dairy prices jumped by 47 percent in one month and 111 percent in one year.

However, the numbers published by the SCI still might not convey the real picture of rising prices. For example, in case of rents, the report showed an annual increase of 31.7 percent, while other reports speak of up to 100 percent rise in rental fees in the past few months, driving some lower middle class families into homelessness.

Protests began immediately in May after the government announced the elimination of food subsidies and have continued almost daily since then. Even government-controlled media are slamming the presidential administration for what they say is mismanagement of the economy.

Around 80 percent of the economy is directly or indirectly controlled by the state, which leads to planning nightmares, nepotism, political favoritism and corruption.

What helped the Islamic Republic to muddle through in past decades was oil export income, which has been significantly reduced by US sanctions imposed when the Trump administration withdrew from the 2015 nuclear agreement known as the JCPOA.

Year-long negotiations to revive the agreement have not succeeded, reportedly by Iran’s insistence for removal of sanctions imposed on its Revolutionary Guard, which is accused among other things of supporting terrorism.

With sanctions in place and an economy burdened by inefficiency, Iran’s financial situation will likely remain dismal, making the political atmosphere unstable in the country.

In a Tuesday interview with Tasnim news agency, affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard, Foundation of Martyrs and Veterans Affairs chief Amir-Hossein Ghazizadeh Hashemi said, "We still do not know the exact amount of damages and embezzlements that have occurred,” adding that “only one company has embezzled about five trillion tomans," or 50 trillion rials.

He did not mention the name of the company but said, "It was so big that we asked the security and intelligence services to intervene and investigate.”

The foundation has an economic wing that oversees dozens of companies with colossal amounts of assets that include the Kosar Economic Complex with dozens of companies, the Martyrs Foundation Property Organization, the Shahed Investment Company, Day Bank and Iran Zamin Bank.

About 10 years ago, the Iranian parliament formed a taskforce to probe the embezzlements at the Martyrs Foundation, but its final report was buried due to "political pressure.” The head of the taskforce later said that more than 30 people were involved in embezzlement only in the case of Day Bank.

Ghazizadeh said, "A large group of Day Bank executives have been arrested. This was just one example, now the same issues exist in the Kowsar Economic Complex and Shahed Investment Company as well as in other companies.”

In his first move after his appointment by President Ebrahim Raisi, Ghazizadeh asked the government to transfer the authority of the country's free zones to the Martyrs Foundation.

Yair Lapid, Israeli foreign minister and due to be prime minister when Biden arrives July 13, told US Secretary of State Antony Blinken by phone Tuesday that the president’s trip to Saudi Arabia and Israel “would have significant implications for the region and the fight against Iran, as well as immense potential to significantly improve regional stability and security," an Israeli foreign ministry statement said. Israeli Défense Minister Benny Gantz said Monday that Israel was building a US-sponsored air-defense system aimed at curbing drone or missile strikes by Iran and its allies.

Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman was Tuesday in Egypt and Jordan, and is due to visit Turkey, repairing his image after the 2018 killing in Istanbul of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggithat US intelligence concluded was done on the prince’s orders. In a move condemned by human rights groups, Turkey in April transferred the Khashoggi murder case to Saudi Arabia.

The Saudi crown prince, whose government has given significant financial support to the Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi who seized power in 2014 from the elected Muslim Brotherhood government, reportedly agreed $7.7 billion in agreements over food, transport, energy and pharmaceuticals. Egypt, the world’s largest importer of wheat, faces food shortages due to the Ukraine crisis.

While Saudi Arabia quietly favored Israel’s 2020 ‘normalization’ agreements with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, brokered by US President Donald Trump and advisor Jared Kushner, it has refrained from establishing diplomatic and formal ties with Israel.

Prince Mohammad’s first visit to Jordan came as Jordan's economy, like Egypt’s, struggles with the knock-on effects of the Ukraine war. Business leaders and officials expressed hope the Saudis will now deliver on past promises of $3 billion investment.

Summit Next Month

The Saudi crown prince and Jordan’s King Abdullah also discussed a summit next month where Biden will meet leaders of the six Sunni-led states of the Gulf Corporation Council, as well as Iraq, Jordan, and Egypt. King Abdullah is credited with the phrase ‘Shia crescent,’ which he used in 2004 to describe Iran’s growing regional influence.

Israel and the UAE inked May 31 a free-trade agreementfollowing up their 2020 ‘normalization’ agreement, and March’s meeting in Negev, Israel, of the foreign ministers of Israel, Bahrain, Egypt, Morocco, the UAE and the US, is planned as an annual event.

Israel and Saudi Arabia share concerns over Iran’s foreign policy os supporting militant proxies in the region, including Hezbollah and Ansar Allah in Yemen and have supported those who were willing to oppose Iranian influence. The Israeli and Saudi leadership have also opposed the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, from which Trump withdrew the US in 2018 and which the Biden administration says it wants to restore.

But while Biden came to office committed to recalibrating Washington’s links with Saudi Arabia, especially in asserting human rights, and initially dealt with Riyadh frostily, relations have thawed, partly as the US feels the need for increased Saudi oil exports to bear down on the rising cost of gasoline.

Domestic politics are also at work in Israel. The government Monday called a national election – the fifth in three years. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has trumpeted a more assertive approach to Iran than opposition leader and former premier Benjamin Netanyahu, who hopes to return to power.

While there are Israeli security experts who see Bennett’s approach as counter-productive and who disregard talk of an Israeli-Sunni alliance, Bennett has used the phrase ‘Octopus Doctrine’ to describe drone or sabotage attacks on Iran’s nuclear and military sites, a campaign widely believed to also include killing scientists, engineers, and military officers.

With reporting by Reuters