Dutch MEP Calls Iranian Leader’s Pardon For Protesters 'Hypocrisy'

During a session on Monday, Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf (Qalibaf) defended the plan that is criticized by many lawmakers who oppose granting immunity to the seven-man team responsible for its implementation.

The Government decided to sell public properties in November 2022 to raise money amid financial crisis and a large budget deficit. Similar past schemes implemented without proper rules and transparency have ended in scandals.

According to reports, the new privatization plan -- approved by the heads of the three powers of the government, President Ebrahim Raisi, Judiciary Chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei and Ghalibaf -- bars critics of disclosing details of transactions and suspends for two years all legislation that might prevent these transactions.

The transactions are going to take place under the supervision of a seven-man team, comprised of Vice President Mohammad Mokhber, Economy Minister Ehsan Khandouzi, Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi, Roads Minister Mehrdad Bazrpash, Planning and Budget Chief Massoud Mirkazemi, Parliament Speaker’s representative Pejman Pashmchizadeh and a representative to be appointed by the Judiciary Chief. The members of the taskforce are said to have absolute judicial immunity.

Making a paradoxical remark, Ghalibaf said "Immunity does not mean that the members on this board can commit crimes,” and added that “there will definitely be supervision on this board."

The team is headed by Mokhber, who practically runs the administration and is closely linked with the office of the country’s ruler Ali Khamenei. Since the plan does not specify any supervision mechanism and grants legal immunity, it is not clear who will supervise Mokhber.

Without elaborating on his role in the ratification of the measure, Ghalibaf assigned Pashmchizadeh as his representative on the board on Monday. Early in January, Pashmchizadeh did not manage to garner the needed votes for the Supreme Audit Court of Iran. 

Former lawmaker Mohammad Khoshchehreh, an economics professor at Tehran University, criticized the immunity, saying that “influential people can lead the board astray."

Denouncing the plan, Iranian investigative journalist and historian Hossein Dehbashi quipped that the plan can be described as “the distribution of the spoils” of war. 

On Sunday, hardliner politician Ahmad Tavakkoli rebuked the plan to liquidate public assets with no supervision or a clear process in a letter addressed to the heads of the three government branches. Himself a regime insider and a member of the Expediency Discernment Council, Tavakkoli noted that the measure is in obvious violation of the country’s constitution. He argued that this manner of running the government is similar to the behavior of a drug addict who cannot afford to buy his drugs and decides to sell off its belongings to support his addiction.

"At the beginning of the addiction, the addict spends his income on buying drugs, but after the income is not enough, he starts selling his properties and furniture,” Tavakokoli did not mince his words.

Many former officials and the media have expressed deep concerns over the plan. Mohammad Reza Salehi, a logistics chief of former President Hassan Rouhani’s office, in a speech at a meeting of former officials earlier this month argued that the so-called privatization would give rise to massive corruption, degenerate the regime from within and eventually cause its collapse.

Reza Gheibi, an economic journalist, told Iran International that the liquidation of assets would not help the government to overcome the economic crisis it is grappling with. “In the best-case scenario, it may balance some of the budget deficit,” he said, adding that transferring these assets to individuals and entities connected with Khamenei’s office, who would be the likely beneficiaries, would give them control over the economy.

In a tweet last Wednesday (February 1), Iran's exiled prince, Reza Pahlavi, accused Khamenei of plundering the country’s national wealth “greedily” with the so-called privatization plan. “Plunderers should be aware that legal immunity will not help them, and the plundered assets of the Iranian nation should [one day] be restored to the treasury of the nation,” he wrote.

The shady privatization plan, which is promulgated to improve generation of wealth and production in Iran, has been met with a lot of skepticism by the public, who have seen corrupt “privatization” in the past 15 years, when state properties were sold at ridiculously low prices to well-connected individuals.

The clerical regime – struggling with domestic unrest and grappling with rising inflation on the backdrop of global isolation – is in desperate need of money. People are terrified that the plan is the Islamic Republic’s last-ditch effort to liquidate public assets to keep itself afloat.

In an exclusive interview with Russia Today, Jamileh Alamolhoda blamed the US for the protests that have swept the country for almost five months, saying that “Washington is trying to show a false image of Iran and Russia in the world and instill fear.”

"What you describe as a tragedy that had a wide repercussion in the world is nothing but a new version of the intimidating narrative that US uses against Iran,” she claimed.

She went on to say that “Washington wants to tell us I can bring the terrorists to your streets and set cars on fire. It wants us to surrender and as a result present a distorted picture of Iran to the world.”

Iranian officials label protesters as “rioters” and in some cases as “terrorists.”

She also added that Russia is having a similar experience with the US as “Washington tries to present a distorted image of Russia to the whole world.”

They want to make our neighbors and the international community afraid so that they can sell more arms, she alleged.

Jamileh-Sadat Alamolhoda is the daughter of hardliner Friday prayer Imam of the religious city of Mashhad, Ahmad Alamolhoda.

Her comments come as the Iranian regime has been intimidating the protesters by using force, live rounds and executing detainees.

Over 500 people have been killed by the clerical rulers so far.

Before its award for Best Song for Social Change at the Grammys 2023, a new category at the gala, Shervin’s creation had touched millions of Iranians who are protesting against the Islamic Republic for about five months now. The single had also become a viral sensation even among non-Persian-speaking music fans who were in support of the protests.

Lauding the track, Jill Biden added that the new award was put in place to recognize a tune that “responds to the social issues of our time and has the potential for positive global impact," and said she was "honored" to announce the first winner in the category. She also noted that more than 130,000 people sent their submissions for the song.

According to Variety in October, 95,000 of the submissions were made for Hajipour’s song. Describing the song as "stirring," Biden said, “This song became the anthem of the Mahsa Amini protests, a powerful and poetic poem for freedom and women’s rights."

The song, which was released in the early days of protests ignited by the death of Mahsa Amini in 'hijab police' custody, was viewed more than 40 million times in two days on Shervin’s Instagram account, and has since become the unofficial anthem of the women-led uprising. It soon became one of the most covered songs by professional singers such as Rana Mansour and a myriad of amateur Iranians. In October, British indie band Coldplay also made headlines after the group invited Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani to perform the song onstage with them in Buenos Aires.

The word ‘baraye,’ which is translated from Persian as “for …” or “for the sake of”, is repeated at the start of every line of the song, which is composed of a collection of tweets by Iranians bemoaning the situation in their country: “For dancing in the streets; for the fear of kissing; for the students and their future”, and “for women, life, freedom”.

After the impactful song went viral and rocked social media, Shervin was arrested by the regime’s agents and the song was removed from his page. He was released on bail in October after he published a forced confession and an apology on his Instagram page. His case is still going through the 'legal' process, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency.

Hajipour, who had gained relative popularity in 2019 when he appeared as a contestant in the Iranian television talent show, New Era, now is among the favorite singers of the Iranian protests, along with rap artists Toomaj Salehi and Saman Seydi, whose stage name is Yasin.

After winning the Grammy, Hajipour simply wrote on Instagram, "We won." However, a large number of Iranians from all around the world congratulated him for the award, calling it a triumph for the antigovernment protests. Another Iranian Grammy award winner Kayhan Kalhor‌ posted a story and wished success for Hajipour while German member of European Parliament, Hannah Neumann, tweeted “Beyoncé may have won 32 Grammys -- but this one surely is the most important one this year.”

Women’s rights activist Masih Alinejad said that “Once, if we were killed on streets, or hanged, no one would hear us. But now, our cry of protest, our music and art, has crossed the borders of the world.”

Canada-based activist Hamed Esmaeilion who has so far organized several rounds of worldwide protest rallies against the Islamic Republic, also posted to mark Hajipour’s victory and paid a tribute to all the artists that were killed by the Islamic Republic.

A video on social media shows that the doctor refuses to attend the pro-Hijab woman saying this is his private office and he cannot tolerate such moves.

Fars News Agency which is affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard reported Monday that the doctor has been summoned and indicted while his office has been sealed.

Despite nationwide protests in the past few months following the death of Mahsa Amini in the custody of the ‘morality police,’ the judicial and law enforcement agencies of the clerical regime continue to strictly follow the observance of the "mandatory hijab".

On January 16, the commander of the Bushehr police force in the south announced that several girls with “improper hijab” had been arrested on the charge of “assaulting a veiled lady”.

The arrest came after a video showed the girls quarrelling with a woman who was warning them about mandatory hijab in the street.

In the last few weeks, numerous reports have been published about police sealing off businesses, restaurants, cafes and even in some cases pharmacies for not observing the mandatory hijab rules by employees.

The Islamic Republic has increased pressure on women for non-compliance with the mandatory hijab in a situation that the country has been the scene of nationwide protests since September 16.

In a press conference on Sunday, ILNA reporter asked Davoud Manzour how Khatam al-Anbiya Construction Headquarter has not paid taxes since 2017.

In response, the INTA chief threatened the reporter, saying he has to provide documents to back up his question, and if the documents are not presented, the prosecutor will indict him.

In the published video of the press conference, the reporter's voice can be heard telling Manzour that this was a statement made by Hossein Houshi al-Sadat, the commander of the Khatam al-Anbiya.

Many semi-public business and “charity” outfits in Iran run by regime insiders are exempt from paying taxes and some even receive assistance from the government.

IRGC’s Khatam-al Anbiya Construction Headquarters is the engineering arm of the IRGC and one of Iran's largest contractors in industrial and development projects. Khatam al-Anbiya was created during the 1980–88 Iran–Iraq War to help rebuild the country, but diversified over the years into companies dealing with mechanical engineering, energy, mining, and defense.

Involvement of the IRGC in business began in earnest two decades ago and has become a highly controversial issue in the country. Former president Hassan Rouhani in 2017 publicly criticized the practice and met a quick reaction by hardliners. He had to retract his statements at the time.