Top Officials Should Take First Flight On Iranian-Made Plane, Daily Quips

Despite repeated calls by political figures and critics of the Islamic Republic, the Supreme Leader said that various issues in the country "cannot be subject to a referendum".

During a meeting with a cherrypicked number of students on Tuesday, Khamenei said, “Is it possible to hold referendum on various issues in the country? Where in the world do they do this? Do all the people who have to participate in the referendum have the ability to analyze that issue?” he said.

Khamenei’s rhetoric of comparing his regime with other countries is misleading, because he and his loyalists have severely restricted most freedoms and manipulated elections, jailed opponents and critics and jailed or killed protesters.

Former regime insider and currently opposition figure Mir-Hossein Mousavi, who was a presidential candidate in 2009 and has been under house arrest since 2011, as well as former president Hassan Rouhani and several others have called for a plebiscite over key issues, such as a new constitution, or the nuclear program. 

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Former president Rouhani said earlier in the month that the main solution to the existing problems of the country is to hold a referendum on the three issues of "foreign policy, domestic policy and economy.” 

“Student activities should not polarize the student community and the country. Polarization is the will of the enemy. Students’ demands must be accompanied by realism and providing scientific and practical solutions,” the Leader said, adding that “Hardships do not demoralize a motivated young student. He studies and fights to solve problems.”

Requests were also made to hold a referendum on the highly controversial issue of mandatory hijab, but a regime outfit that acts as morality watchdog opposed the idea. 

Groups of Iranian reformist politicians and activists have come out in support of Mousavi’s call for a referendum. Over 400 political activists and journalists have signed a statement in support of the Green Movement leader’s call to end clerical rule in Iran.

“With the current social awakening, and the society’s disillusionment with reforms within the current [political] structure, there is no other way than allowing the people to decide their own destiny,” the statement said while expressing its support of Mousavi’s three-stage proposal and a “peaceful and non-violent transition” to a democratic government and the “Woman, Life, Freedom” Movement.

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In another statement, 112 reformists who are mostly former government officials, issued a similar statement Sunday admitting that the goals of the 1979 revolution to have justice and democracy in Iran have failed, and voiced support for Mousavi’s demands.

Mousavi, after months of popular anti-regime protests, said in a statement on February 4 that fundamental change was required to “save Iran” and proposed elections to appoint a constitutional assembly to write a new constitution and a referendum on the new constitution and its proposed form of government.

Abolfazl Rahimi Shad, one of the members of the association, stated that due to an unprecedented devaluation of the rial against the US dollar in the past four decades, wages have seriously lagged behind the cost for goods and services.

"Receiving salaries in rial while expenses are in dollars has led to an increase in inequality in the distribution of wealth and economic pressure on the lower classes of society," he noted.

Real incomes in Iran began to lag behind inflation after the establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979, but salaries were increasing from 2000-2010 when monthly minimum wage hit a high of about $275 in 2010. This coincided with the time when the United Nations Security Council began imposing sanctions to force Tehran to roll back its nuclear program.

A few months into the presidency of Ebrahim Raisi, when inflation was around 40 percent, the High Council of Labor increased the minimum wage by an unprecedented 57 percent in early 2022 after two consecutive years of very high inflation. At the time minimum wage almost equaled $220.

However, the rial lost half of its value in the past 8 months and the minimum wage has dropped to around $120 a month.

Many politicians and commentators have warned that rising prices and declining incomes will lead to more protests in the coming months.

The inflation rate has risen to around 50 percent and to at least 70 percent in the food group while rents have at least doubled in less than a year.

Olivier Vandecasteele has been held in the Islamic Republic since last year on spurious charges of “spying and cooperation with the United States, money laundering and smuggling $500,000 out of Iran.”

An Iranian court sentenced the humanitarian worker to 40 years in prison and 74 lashes, it was announced in January.

Vandecasteele, 41, has been employed by Médecins du Monde, Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), and Relief International. He worked for humanitarian organizations in Iran for more than six years before leaving the country, but was lured back by “a girlfriend” and was detained in February 2022.

He has been subject to torture, according to Amnesty International, and is being held in solitary confinement in a windowless basement cell without access to adequate healthcare and fresh air.

Belgian Foreign Minister Hadja Lahbib confirmed on Tuesday that she had notified her Iranian counterpart Hossein Amir-Abdollahian of the transfer request.

In a social media post, she said: "I condemned his detention conditions and requested a visit by our ambassador to Iran."

A swap is being discussed between Brussels and Iran for Iranian official Assadollah Assadi, jailed in Belgium for masterminding a plot to bomb an Iranian opposition event near Paris in 2018.

In response to a legal challenge by an Iranian opposition group, the potential prisoner exchange was held up for months.

Belgium's Constitutional Court rejected a request to annul the prisoner exchange treaty with the Islamic Republic in March.

In a Tuesday statement, the response group -- which represents Canada, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and Ukraine – said, “The sham trials that took place in Tehran must not distract the world from Iran’s failure to meet its international obligations and take responsibility for its actions.”

On Sunday, a court in Iran issued sentences for 10 low-ranking military personnel in connection with the incident, sentencing a commander to 10 years in prison, while nine others were sentenced to between one and three years. The names of none of the senior military and government officials could be seen in the list, while families of victims demand to know which senior officers issued the order to fire at the plane.

In the statement, the response group said that the Islamic Republic “callously shot down Flight PS752 over Tehran," denouncing the verdicts in the criminal trials against the alleged perpetrators.

“Neither the trials nor the verdicts announced this week brings truth or justice to the families of the victims, as the entire process—starting with Iran’s biased investigation into the downing—lacked the necessary impartiality and transparency,” read the statement.

Flight PS752 of the Ukrainian International Airlines was shot down by two air-defense missiles fired by the IRGC as it took off from Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport on January 8, 2020. Hours earlier, the IRGC had fired more than a dozen missiles at Iraqi bases hosting US troops in retaliation for the killing of its Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimani in a US airstrike in Baghdad just five days earlier.

All 176 passengers and crew, including 63 Canadians as well as 82 Iranian citizens died in the disaster.

Iran first tried to deny it had shot down the plane, but when video evidence emerged, it acknowledged the incident but attributed it to human error. However, it never allowed an independent investigation and did not explain why the order was issued to shoot at a plane taking off from Tehran, or if Iran was concerned about a US retaliation, why it did not close its airspace following the attack on US bases in Iraq.

On December 28, 2022, the Coordination Group urged Iran to agree to arbitration as Tehran stonewalled over an independent investigation and proper compensation.

The statement Tuesday added, “The families of the 176 innocent victims are still waiting for the justice they deserve. We continue to stand in solidarity with the families and loved ones of the victims of the downing of Flight PS752 and will not rest until justice has been served.”

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On Monday, head of the Judiciary Organization of the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic, Ali Eftekhari, made paradoxical remarks about the case. Claiming that "the air defense system of the country was not defective" at the night of the accident, he said that "it was not possible to determine whether it was a passenger plane or a missile in the radar system at night."

Although it is common knowledge that radar is a radiolocation system that uses radio waves to detect and track objects and there is no difference in their performance between night and day. In addition, speed and trajectory of an object should clearly distinguish between a missile and a passenger plane.

Eftekhari also claimed that the IRGC did not shoot a second rocket at the plane, despite videos of the night of the incident clearly showing the second projectile.

Following the trials, families of the victims are outragedby light sentences issued for a few low-ranking military men.

Responding to the criticism about the light sentences for the alleged culprits in comparison to the harsh sentences for antigovernment protesters, Eftekhari said that those who go to the streets seek to "disrupt security" and "must" be punished but the operator behind the attack on the passenger plane meant to preserve the country’s security.

The exiled son of the Shah voiced his hopes that one day in the future the two nations can resume their historical friendship.

Publishing a photo of himself at the Western Wall on Tuesday, Pahlavi tweeted that 2,500 years ago, Cyrus the Great liberated the Jewish people from captivity and helped them rebuild their Temple in Jerusalem.

He said: “It is with profound awe that I visit the Western Wall of that Temple and pray for the day when the good people of Iran and Israel can renew our historic friendship.”

He quoted a verse from the Holy Hebrew Bible saying, “So said Cyrus, the king of Persia, ‘All the kingdoms of the earth the Lord God of the heavens delivered to me, and He commanded me to build Him a House in Jerusalem, which is in Judea.’”

He also read Psalms, guided by a local rabbi, while praying for peace between the two nations.

Pahlavi’s visit with his wife to the Western Wall on Tuesday morning had been arranged by Israeli Intelligence Minister Gila Gamliel.

While hundreds of others prayed at the Western Wall during the Holocaust Memorial Day siren, Pahlavi stood in reflection with the rest of the congregation for two minutes.

As part of his historic visit to the Jewish state, Pahlavi also met with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem and attended a Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony at Yad Vashem. Although he stood alongside Netanyahu and Israel's President Isaac Herzog, he did not make a speech.