Senior Iranian conservative lawmaker Mostafa Mir-Salim confirmed Monday that his son has been detained over connections with exiled Albania-based opposition group Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) organization.
The representative of Tehran at the parliament, who was once a culture minister and a presidential candidate as well as Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's chief of staff when he was president, made the remarks in an interview with Tasnim news, affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard.
He said his son was arrested in July 2019 and was sentenced to five years in prison in February 2020 on charges of acting against national security through cooperation with the MEK. He was jailed in Evin Prison in February 2021.
The MP added that the MEK had tried to use his son’s "weak point" to get classified information but his son did not have any.
He gave vague explanations about his son's "weakness" and only said, "His weakness is both physical and mental" and has made him unable to provide for his livelihood. “My son is very emotional, naive and weak-willed," and the MEK found ways to trap him and exploit his weakness, he said.
According to reports, Mehdi Mir-Salim had not gone back to prison for more than 200 days following a furlough but security forces did not arrest him. He was also granted amnesty for half of his prison term.
On July 16, Iran's Foreign Ministry sanctioned a dozens of US officials and lawmakers over their alleged support for the MEK.
Yuri Ushakov, foreign policy advisor to the Russian president, told reporters in Moscow Monday that a planned meeting with Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, was “very important” and would reflect a “trusting dialogue…on the most important issues on the bilateral and international agenda.”
Putin is also expected to meet in Tehran with visiting Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, partly to follow up trilateral discussions with Ukraine over establishing a corridor through Turkey for the export of Ukrainian grain, a move that may be soon endorsed by the United Nations. At the same time, Moscow is well aware that its own grain exports are a potential sweetener, with Dmitry Patrushev suggesting in June Russia would send supplies to “countries that are friendly to us”.
While Erdogan, despite sending arms to Ukraine, has acted as a mediator between the warring neighbors, he also wants to liaise with both Russia and Iran over Syria, where Ankara is considering stepping up an armed intervention, aimed partly in support of Syrian rebels and partly against Kurdish forces allied with Kurdish rebels in Turkey. Iran opposes the Turkish presence, which is tolerated by both Russia and the US.
While Putin has left Russia only once since the Ukraine crisis erupted in February – travelling in June to Tajikistan and for the Sixth Caspian Summit in Turkmenistan – his trip to Iran is seen as an important chance to assert Russia’s continuing role in the Middle East immediately after the visit of United States President Joe Biden to Israel and Saudi Arabia, which concluded Saturday evening after Biden told the summit of nine Arab states he would not leave in the Middle East “a vacuum to be filled by China, Russia or Iran.”
Moscow’s regional leverage
Russia wants to maintain leverage gained from years of nuanced military and diplomatic regional efforts – including its 2015 military onslaught in Syria that tipped war in favor of President Bashar al-Assad, its intelligence sharing and political ties with Israel, its coordination with Saudi Arabia of global oil supplies through Opec+, and its diplomatic cooperation with Iran.
The Iran-Russia relationship has been well discussed in both Tehran, where some politicians regularly criticize Moscow’s continuing role in Iran’s nuclear talks with world powers, and in Washington. US officials have lately alleged that Russian officers visited Iran in June and July to look into possibilities for deploying Iranian-made attack drones for the Ukraine war. President Ebrahim Raisi met Putin in Moscow in January, and again at the Caspian Summit in June, when the Iranian president joined the leaders of Russia, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan, and expressed a desire to build economic ties.
But many analysts argue that Russia and Iran are far from partners, whether in arms or business. Bilateral trade rose to $4 billion in 2021, but this is far less that, for example, Russia’s trade with Turkey at $33 billion, while Moscow’s exports to Iran are mainly foodstuffs, which are less vulnerable to US third-party sanctions than other sectors.
And while Tehran has been benefiting from rising oil prices, its sales to China, which make up most of its exports dues to US sanctions, have been hampered by Moscow selling to Beijing at a discount after being shut out of much of western Europe due to the Ukraine invasion.
A woman who was arrested because of an acrimonious dispute with a hijab enforcer in a city bus was identified as Sepideh Rashno, an educated person with a good public profile, Iran International has learned.
Rashno – a 28-year-old artist, writer and editor – was arrested on Saturday evening, July 16, after a video of her quarrel with a woman enforcing hijab rules – identified as Rayeheh Rabi’i -- went viral.
In the video Rabi’i, who was fully covered by a long, black ‘chador’ – which is typical of the supporters of the Islamic Republic – is seen shouting at Rashno who had unveiled in the transit bus. The quarrel became so frantic that other passengers intervened and kicked the hijab enforcer out of the bus.
Rabi’i was also recording the incident and threatening the hijab-protester to send it to the Revolutionary Guards. There are unconfirmed reports on social media that Rabi’i’s father is a member of the Revolutionary Guard’s Basij paramilitary force and was involved in the crackdown of popular protests in 2009.
Some government officials, including the head of the Islamic Development Organization, have praised Rabi’i and called on people to confront women who unveil in public.
IRGC affiliated Fars news broke the news which could frighten people whose support for anti-hijab protests are growing, adding that several other anti-hijab activists had also been arrested since Iranian women launched a campaign against the compulsory Islamic dress code on July 12.
In another video released this week, a man started berating a few teenage girls who had removed their hijab at a subway station in Tehran, but other people came to help and sent the angry man away. The number of videos of confrontations between anti-hijab protesters and hijab enforcers are growing in social media.
In a statement released on Sunday, Iran’s exiled queen Farah Pahlavi condemned the widespread arrests of civil and human rights activists in Iran, particularly the anti-hijab activists.
Denouncing the violent behavior of the morality – or hijab – police while arresting the protesters, she said that “not a day goes by without news and images of attacks on women and violation of their rights, disturbing the souls of noble Iranians, but the news of the civil struggle of women and men of my land against any kind of coercion and discrimination is a source of pride and honor.”
Iranians deserve peaceful coexistence no matter their beliefs, clothing or lifestyle as it was like this before the Islamic Revolution and will become so thanks to people, she said.
She noted that the will and civil courage of Iranian men and women is greater and stronger “than the oppressors’ power.”
On July 12, following a call by women’s rights activists for civil disobedience with the hashtag of ‘No2Hijab’ social media exploded with dozens of videos and photos of women unveiling in public.
Iran has started arresting women who participated in the nationwide campaign against the compulsory Islamic dress code this week.
For the past few weeks, the government has increased harassment of women for their insufficient hijab and many have been detained by special police patrols.