Prominent Cleric, Other Insiders Criticize Regime Amid Iran Crises
In an unprecedented move Hossein Ansarian an influential Iranian cleric harshly criticized the physical and psychological torture of political prisoners.
In an unprecedented move Hossein Ansarian an influential Iranian cleric harshly criticized the physical and psychological torture of political prisoners.
Speaking at a Ramadan-related religious ceremony last week, Ansarian whose remarks were being broadcast live on the Iranian state television told security officials: "If you have someone under arrest, do not lie to him about his imminent execution. Do not scare those who worship God."
Months of anti-regime protests and the insistence of hardliners to force hijab upon women, has led to a public debate in Iran, with some regime insiders condemning repressive policies.
The comment brought many reactions on social media, with some saying Ansarian is going his own separate way, while others pointed out that "he is now standing with the people." . Some of Iran's high-ranking clerics such as Ayatollah Abdollah Javadi Amoli also defended Ansarian.
Others posted comments by former Presidential Adviser Mohammad Ali Abtahi who recalled that when he was jailed in 2009, he was told by his interrogators that he was going to be executed the next morning.
Responding to those who said Ansarian has disembarked from the train of the Islamic Revolution, Abtahi said that if Ansarian is not on the train, it must have been hijacked.
This comes while, IRGC general Esmail Kowsari, currently a member of the Iranian parliament, denied the accounts about threatening prisoners with execution, and said: "We do not have torture in Iran. Some people complain about being tortured as soon as they are deprived of sleeping for a few hours. We do not force confessions."
Ansarian who is known to be close to regime officials and has been often seen delivering religious speeches at Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's house also talked about the hijab controversy and the regime’s harsh measures against women who defy compulsory hijab. He said he respected Iranian women and believed that 90 percent of them complied with the religious teachings about hijab.
Ansarian said: "If you want to arrest women for not observing hijab rules, come and arrest me instead." Furthermore, he called on Iranian security officials to respect prisoners, not to swear at them or humiliate them, not to beat them, and stressed that all of these behavior are strictly prohibited in Islam." He repeated, "They are haram."
Apart from Abtahi, many other former political prisoners in Iran have said that they had been subjected to mock executions as a tool of intimidation. According to Iran International, Sahand Mohammadzadeh, who was arrested during the protests last year, has said that interrogators pretended they were going to execute him. He said he was also tortured in other ways during his imprisonment which followed a seven-minute trial.
Another former prisoner, Maziar Ebrahimi who was jailed on the false charges of assassinating Iran's nuclear scientists in 2010s, revealed in 2019 in detail about having been tortured in Iranian prisons.
Following the November 2019 protests in Iran, Amnesty International listed mock executions among other forms of tortures used against Iranian political prisoners.
During recent days, other regime insiders including hardliner eulogist Mahmoud Karimi have said that authorities ordered him not to talk about religious stories that advocated compassion toward prisoners.
Meanwhile, Mehdi Nasiri, a former editor of the Kayhan newspaper has also openly spoken in criticism of Khamenei, blaming him for the country's problem. Sedigheh Vasmaghi, a female jurisconsult has also warned Khamenei that he would be responsible for dividing Iranians over the issue of hijab.
According to Iran International, as more regime insiders begin to speak about the problems in the core of the regime, this can give way to the assumption that the crisis in the core of the regime has become so obvious that could be concealed.
Police said Sunday that on the first day of the implementation of its new hijab enforcement plan it had warned 3,500 businesses about hijab infringements on their premises. They also shut down 137 shops as well as 18 restaurants and wedding hall-gardens that were repeat offenders and referred their cases to the judiciary for further action.
According to police spokesman Brigadier Saeed Montazerolmahdi, police also warned owners of several hundred vehicles whose drivers or passengers were spotted hijabless by text messages.
“The police force will enforce the law against a small number of people who look like they have arrived from a different planet, are unaware of the norms and traditions of the country, and break the law,” he said.
Cycling “hijabless” at Tehran’s Keshavarz Boulevard on April 16.
Police officials warned last week that the campaign against women who do not abide by the hijab rules would begin Saturday with the help of public CCTV cameras.
Many women, however, have shared photos of being in the streets, parks and other public areas without hijab on social media despite the harsh warnings.
Since Khamenei’s declaration of “hijablessness” being not only religiously but also politically forbidden, Iranian officials have focused on the hijab issue despite the many other problems such as high inflation and corruption that the country is facing.
Workers and retirees who resumed their scattered protests after the New Year holidays in early April complain that their dire circumstances are being ignored at the cost of re-establishing the regime’s control over women for hijab. “Bridling inflation was only an empty slogan,” protesting retirees in Shushtar in Khuzestan province chanted Sunday.
Protesting retirees in Shushtar chanting “Bridling inflation was only an empty slogan”
Meanwhile, students staged sit-ins in several universities in Tehran in protest to officials cracking down on women for hijab, using harsh punitive actions against dissident students.
In recent days authorities have denied entrance to women whose tunics were considered as “too short” or for wearing make-up in some universities. Punitive actions such as suspensions, for as long as two years, for hijab and political activities have also been reported in several universities.
“Stop suffocation and suppression in universities” and “Freedom of choice over hijab is the Iranian women’s right”, were some of the placards protesting students held at the psychology and educational sciences faculty of Tehran University.
“Schoolgirls are being poisoned, teachers are in prison, and all they care about is hijab!” protesting students chanted at the social sciences faculty in the same university.
Girls behind the gates of Rasht Azad University waiting for inspection of their appearance before entering.
In a statement Saturday, fifteen prominent Iranian lawyers and rights activists warned the government over its “suppressive policy” of imposing hijab and said a truth finding committee of the United Nations would be required to investigate the harms caused by these policies.
The statement signed by lawyers and human rights activists from inside Iran and abroad including Nasrin Sotoudeh and other rights defenders have urged that UN human rights sanctions should be imposed on those involved in violence against women for hijab.
“Unable to establish justice and equality of women and men as the most basic of legal principles, the Islamic Republic is expanding the suppression of women in contradiction to basic human and civil rights, by forging new terms such as ‘politically haram’ while continuing its clear repressive policies,” the statement said.
“Politically haram” is a term first used by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei on April 4. “Discarding hijab is haram (sin) based on Sharia and also politically,” Khamenei emphatically declared at a meeting with state officials while claiming that foreign intelligence services were encouraging Iranian women to disobey mandatory hijab.
The Supreme Leader’s remarks were contradictory, as he told senior military commanders and officials that the “enemies are vincible” yet blamed such enemies for the main problems of the country.
"The enemies can be defeated with all their seemingly solid calculations and military might,” he said, without elaborating on his claims.
Despite widespread unrest -- ignited by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini -- as well as the country’s grave economic and social crises, Khamenei voiced his satisfaction with what he called as years of continuous progress by the Iranian Armed Forces.
With an economy in crisis, a restive population and little to show after 34 years of presiding over an ever-unpopular regime, the military is the only institution he can praise, because they have made some advances in developing weapons.
Khamenei maintained that the armed forces should not focus their efforts on the actions of “weak elements” but should be prepared and vigilant against the behind-the-scene plotters. “Arrogant powers wage a conflict from behind the scenes wherever it benefits them,” using the Islamic Republic’s jargon for the US and Western powers.
Paying no heed to the fast-paced dynamics of political change in the countries that Khamenei calls enemies of the Islamic Republic, he said, “Paying close attention to the enemy's five- or ten-year schemes is necessary, but mid- and long-term plots should be considered and monitored.”
This statement, more than anything else, revealed Khamenei’s fascination with conspiracy theories, imagining that the United States and European powers have long-term plans for decades to come.
Another conspiracy theory put forth by the octogenarian autocrat was why the US military’s involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, describing them as “the two wars America started in the east and west of Iran about two decades ago.” He claimed, “Americans had interests in Iraq and Afghanistan, but their ultimate goal was the Islamic Iran, and due to the solid foundations of the Islamic Revolution, they failed in their adventures as well as their ultimate goal.”
While Khamenei called the United States feeble, he also said it was imperative not to underestimate the enemy. “At no stage should one ignore the enemy's machinations and plots.”
Since the beginning of the 'Women, Life, Liberty’ movement in Iran last September -- the boldest challenge the regime has ever faced – Khamenei has been blaming other countries for the popular uprising.
His strange denial of the nationwide revolt against the regime and his unfounded accusations are manifestations of his usual tactic of blaming others and refusing to take responsibility.
While more than 500 people have been killed by the regime's security forces since the start of the uprising, he has failed to utter a single sympathetic word about the victims.
In February, Khamenei for the first time admitted that there are disagreements between the people and the regime, nonetheless, his state of denial about dissent appears to continue as he repeated that sowing discord and creating differences is the "enemy's strategy."
Months of protests in the streets against the government have left a fragmented society in Iran where trust in the regime is at its lowest point.