Firebrand Imam Says Iran Regime Too Weak To Enforce Hijab
As rumors suggest that Ahmad Alamolhoda, a firebrand top Friday Imam, is likely to be replaced, he may have gone one step too far in defending his hardline views.
As rumors suggest that Ahmad Alamolhoda, a firebrand top Friday Imam, is likely to be replaced, he may have gone one step too far in defending his hardline views.
Alamolhoda said in his sermon on Friday that the regime is no longer powerful enough to stand against women who defy compulsory hijab and [fundamentalist] men and women may need to take the law into their hands.
By this call, Alamolhoda, who is President Ebrahim Raisi’s father-in-law, may have tried to align with the extremists said to be behind the gas attacks on girls' schools in several Iranian cities.
The hardliner cleric opined that the campaign against compulsory hijab has reached a stage in which any institution defending the dress code will be seen as part of the government. Alamolhoda's critics will certainly take his comment as yet another indication of his opposition to what he thinks is the government's "mild" reaction to defiance against the compulsory dress code imposed on Iranian women.
On Thursday, several social media accounts close to clerical circles in Iran suggested that Almolhoda is to be replaced as the Friday Prayers Imam and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's representative in Mashhad. Earlier Alamolhoda was criticized and cautioned by senior members of Khamenei's office about his "too hardline" views that will anger women and fuel protests.
One of the tweets on Thursday even named Ayatollah Mohammad-Javad Nezafat-Yazdi as the man who is likely to take over Alamolhoda's position. The tweet said: "Finally, several years of criticism of the controversial Imam in Mashhad worked and Alamolhoda is going to be replaced by Nezafat-Yazdi." The tweet charged that Alamolhoda violated the country's cultural policies, banned concerts and called chaste women who defied the hijab "prostitutes."
On Friday, Alamolhoda harshly criticized those who say that the Islamic regime should not try to offend "the enemies". He later made it clear that by "enemy" he meant the United States, nicknamed by Islamic Republic officials as "the world's arrogant power." He further claimed that Iran's revolution is spreading in the region and "That is why the United States sees the Islamic Republic as its new rival in the region."
He further charged that opposition to compulsory hijab is another tactic by the United States to topple the Islamic regime in Iran. He claimed that a think tank at the Johns Hopkins University in the United States has decided to increase the rate of exchange for US dollar to 600,000 rials, a level the rates reached last week. He even claimed that Mark Dubowitz of the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies as the brain behind the “economic war room” against the Islamic Republic.
Alamolhoda's possible replacement from his high positions are likely to further weaken his embattled son-in-law Raisi who is seriously under attack even by his own supporters for failing to save Iran's ailing economy.
Meanwhile, Iranian officials and politicians have said repeatedly that replacing one hardliner by another will not solve the country's problems. In one of the latest cases, Ahmad Alireza Beigi, a lawmaker from Tabriz, has said: "The Islamic Republic is like a vehicle that has run out of fuel but we are trying to replace the driver, hoping this will solve the problem."
Alireza Beigi added: "No change will happen unless we return power to the people." He further said: "First we need to return to the point where we made a mistake. We need to allow the people to see the outcome of their own will in running the affairs of the state."
The lawmaker said elsewhere: "Short-sightedness and limiting people's choices have led to the formation of a government in Iran which lacks the people's support and thus, does not have self-confidence." He reminded that Raisi was placed in a position of power when the Guardian Council's secretary said, "We will have a good election even if the people do not take part in it." He warned: "You cannot expect a good election if you ignore the people. And you saw that Raisi was elected in an election with minimal turnout."
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi on Friday described the wave of poisonings of hundreds of schoolgirls around the country as part of a psychological war by the enemies meant “to instill stress and anxiety among students and parents, creating chaos.” He did not say who those enemies are but in the Islamic Republic jargon, the ‘enemies’ usually mean as the United States and Israel, and recently every entity and individual who has expressed support for the current wave of antiregime protests.
“One day, the enemies instigate street riots and another day they try to create problems in the field of education and schools because despite all the plots, people across the country came to the scene and defeated the enemy,” he said, and then referred to state-sponsored demonstrations in February to mark the 44th anniversary of the regime as a victory.
Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian on Friday also hit out at Western governments. “The interventionist reaction of some Western authorities to the question of the suspected poisoning of dear Iranian female students is the continuation of the enemy's hybrid war,” he wrote in a Twitter post.
He claimed that “the relevant institutions of the country are following up seriously and meticulously examining its dimensions. The great nation of Iran knows crocodile tears very well!” He made the remarks as the authorities have not yet allowed media or parents to view the content of surveillance cameras around the schools, which were attacked.
The so-far unexplained poisonous gas attacks at about 60 schools and girl dormitories in one-third of the country’s provinces began November 30 when the first case of poisoning among schoolgirls was reported in the religious city of Qom. Around 1,000 students have become ill with the mysteriously dispersed, unidentified fumes so far. The country's interior minister, Ahmad Vahidi, an ex-IRGC top officer wanted by Interpol for his part in the bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires in 1994, has been tasked with leading the investigation, though he has so far denied fowl play.
Many suspect the schools have been targeted by religious groups opposed to girls' education. The authorities have also denied reports that the death of 11-year-old Fatemeh Rezaei was linked to the poisonings.
Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani urged other countries not to comment on the issues in Iran and described the calls for investigations by right groups and officials as “interventions and dramatic” statements.
Meanwhile, even religious leaders – both Shiites who are among the inner circles of the regime and Sunnis such as Mowlavi Abdolhamid -- have spoken out against government’s inadequate reaction to the poisonings.
Tasnim news agency, affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, cited Reza Karimi Saleh, the deputy governor of Pardis suburb where one of the attacks happened as saying that a fuel tanker driver was arrested because he was next to a school and had also been spotted in two other cities. "Guards at a parking lot where the fuel tanker was parked also suffered from poisoning."
Many have started questioning the efficiency of the intelligence agencies, which are very fast in identifying protesters and arresting them, while others say those responsible for the gas attacks are not identified because the regime already knows they are insiders.
In Geneva, the United Nations human rights office on Friday called for a transparent investigation into the attacks. Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said on Friday that "We're very concerned about these allegations that girls are being deliberately targeted under what appear to be mysterious circumstances.” She said that the findings of a government investigation should be made public, and the perpetrators brought to justice.
Government officials and most lawmakers are still either silent or making vague statements about the attacks often denying that they represent a serious danger to thousands of students.
Meanwhile, a seasoned journalist and lecturer on media has criticized state officials and the media for their inaction in the face of the criminal attacks.
Prominent conservative cleric Abdollah Javadi Amoli said in a meeting with the Minister of education on Thursday that "It is horrendous that officials have not pinpointed the origin of the attacks after three months since the students were gassed in Qom in October. He warned the minister that people will judge officials based on what they do rather than what they say.
Probably pointing out allegations about government forces being involved in the gas attacks, the cleric said military power works in the war front, but what works at schools is education. You cannot correct people's behavior using weapons.
Meanwhile, former reformist lawmaker Tayebeh Siavashi also said in an interview with Etemad Online that it is still not known why the government has not informed the media and the public of the results of toxicological reports. She said the officials behave in a way as if they have just woken up now and found out about the gas attacks.
She also criticized the government for keeping silent about the attacks until they became so widespread that everyone found out about them.
Another cleric and former Reformist lawmaker Ahmad Mazani said in an interview with Rouydad24: "Fanatics in the pre-Islamic period buried girls alive. Gas attacks on girls in modern times is another way of expressing opposition to women's presence in the society." He added that attacks are at the same time a psychological warfare against women and their families to dissuade them from sending their daughters to school.
Mazani also criticized officials for their silence about the attacks for a long time after they started. This is an important issue and Iranian families are deeply worried about it, so, the government should begin news dissemination about the attacks. Mazani added that the government should apologize to the nation for its silence. He also called on top clerics to speak out in the face of fanatic behavior and the advocacy of religious extremist and Taliban-like ideology in Iran.
In another development, prominent journalist and lecturer on journalism Fereydoun Sedighi in an interview with Khabar Online harshly criticized the government media and state officials for their inaction and wrong behavior. However, he added that media in Iran are no longer the people's point of reference for news because they have always published or broadcast official jargon about various developments.
Sedighi charged that not only Iranian officials are not accountable for what they say and do, they also fuel controversy with their irresponsible statements. There have been so many cases of chemical attacks on female students during the past three months, but the officials kept silent for a long time, and now that they have started to talk, they mainly deny what people have seen and what happened to their children.
As Iran International's Morad Veisi said in a news program about the role and performance of the Islamic Republic's security organizations in the gas attacks: "Either the Islamic Republic's 17 security and intelligence organizations are inept and inefficient and have failed to find the perpetrators of the attacks, or the government and its intelligence services know about them, approve of them and are happy about them."