Iran’s Sarmayeh Bank, Two Financial Institutions On Verge of Dissolution
Despite central bank denials, Iranian Sarmayeh (Capital) Bank and two financial institutions, Nour and Caspian, are reportedly on the brink of dissolution.
Despite central bank denials, Iranian Sarmayeh (Capital) Bank and two financial institutions, Nour and Caspian, are reportedly on the brink of dissolution.
Sarmayeh Bank, affiliated with the Teachers' Saving Fund, reported a net loss of over $160 million in the 12-month period ending in March. The cumulative loss of the bank totals over $960 million.
The bank has been embroiled in numerous corruption cases in recent years, involving 400 suspects, some of whom were family members of political officials in the Islamic Republic at various times.
Government interventions, excessive borrowing, and a lack of transparency and accountability in the banking sector are cited as other significant factors contributing to the bankruptcies.
The reports about the liquidation of the struggling banks have been circulating for a while. In August, the central bank officially warned of the risk of bankruptcy for Sarmayeh Bank, stating, "If the bank's board of directors and shareholders fail to take measures to increase the capital adequacy ratio, the bank will be subject to special penalties and restrictions, and it must present a clear plan to address its chronic imbalance."
However, similar to many other decisions in Iran, the liquidation never materialized, possibly to prevent causing widespread panic among the already distrustful population regarding the country's banking system.
Previously, Ayandeh (Future) Bank had been mentioned as one of the banks under consideration by the central bank for either dissolution or merger, which faced objections from central bank authorities.
Jason Schmidt, the district attorney overseeing the case, told Iran International that a “very important hearing” has been completed in favor of the prosecutor.
The defense wanted to “suppress certain statements that Mr. Matar made at the time that he was taken into custody by police,” said Schmidt. But the judge upheld the statements that the prosecutor wanted to “keep and introduce as evidence during the trial”.
Matar, 25, stabbed Rushdie in the neck and torso at a literary event in upstate New York last August. The renowned author had an Iranian bounty on his head since 1989, when he published his novel Satanic Verses, enraging many Muslims across the world. They deemed the book as insulting to the Prophet Mohammed.
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iran’s supreme leader at the time issued a religious edict that obliged Muslims to kill Rushdi, effectively forcing him to go into hiding. He had just begun relaxing his security measures when the attack happened.
“Matar had traveled from New Jersey,” Schmidt said, “so we do believe this is an attack that was pre-planned.”
Early police investigation suggested that Matar was sympathetic to Iran’s Islamic Republic’s Revolutionary Guards. On his Facebook, he had photos of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Qassem Soleimani, the IRGC general killed in a US drone strike in 2020.
At the time, Vice quoted European and Middle Eastern intelligence sources who said Matar had been in contact with some elements within the IRGC. The Islamic Republic officials have denied direct involvement but expressed support for the attack.
It’s been suggested also that Matar could have been influenced by the Iran-backed militant Hezbollah group during his time in Lebanon.
Commenting on potential links between Matar, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the regime in Iran, district attorney Schmidt said, “there is a concurrent federal investigation… they may be looking at something on an international or national scale… that investigation could go beyond Matar and to third persons or even the Iranian government.”
The officials in Tehran wasted no time in celebrating the attack and extending congratulations to the attacker. It was also announced that he would be given 1,000 square meters of fertile farmland in Iran.
Mohammad Ismail Zarei who heads the organization that was established to implement the original edict and kill Salman Rushdie thanked Matar “for his brave action in carrying out the historic fatwa of Imam Khomeini.”
Matar did not deny his feelings either.
Shortly after his arrest, Matar gave a video interview to the New York Post, in which he praised Khomeini and condemned Rushdie as “someone who attacked Islam. ”But he hasn’t revealed much beyond this.
Schmidt explained: “when the attack occurred and Mr. Matar was taken into custody, there were some efforts to interview him to develop as much information as possible surrounding the attack. But that interview was cut short when Mr. Matar asserted his right to counsel.”
Matar is charged in the State of New York with attempted murder of second degree and assault of second degree (related to injuries sustained by another man present at the scene).
If found guilty, he could face up to 25 years in prison.
Resignations began when Vahid Karimipour, a professor of quantum physics at Sharif University of Technology (SUT), published an open letter to say he had been summoned by an “external body” to “discuss” matters related to the university.
“I’d welcome any such discussion in my office,” he wrote, “but I find the order to appear in an institution outside the university is disrespectful to all professors.”
Karimipour did not offer any more details. But to call in people for a ‘conversation’ is standard practice for various intelligence organs in Iran. It is intended and understood as a threat, which may be followed by detainment.
Shortly after Karimipour published his resignation letter, four other members of the elected council resigned. Another member had been sacked by the university a few weeks ago, leaving the seven-member council with only one member standing.
The mass resignation is remarkable since academics in Iran tend to not express political opinions. Higher education institutions in Iran are state owned and state controlled. Professors, even tenured and well established, are not safe in their jobs as is customary in most other countries.
“You should think of professors as government employees… many are on fixed-term contracts these days, which makes their position all the more precarious,” a faculty member at SUT told Iran International on condition of anonymity.
At least 110 academics have been sacked from universities across Iran in the last year.
“They call it khales-sazi,” the SUT professor said, “which could be translated as purification or refinement. But it should be translated as cleansing, as in ethnic cleansing, because that’s what it is: to force out the people you don’t like and replace them with your own people. That’s what they used to call it, in fact, right after the revolution.”
‘Cleansing’ universities began almost immediately after Islamists took power in 1979. It was part of a much larger project by the revolution's leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his aides to stifle freedom of expression and establish a monopoly of the ‘narrative’, be it social, historical, artistic, or even economic.
They called it the Cultural Revolution.
In the four decades since then, hundreds of academics have been sacked in waves of purges that rose and subsided but never stopped.
The latest wave seems to be a direct result of the 2022 protests, which began in mid-September 2022, coinciding with the beginning of the academic year. Universities became a hotbed of protests with students refusing to attend classes and chanting against the regime.
Security and intelligence organs hit back with mass arrests and brutal force. SUT was particularly targeted and bruised badly.
On October 2, 2022, security forces and thugs layed siege to the campus. Earlier that day, a video had gone viral of a group of SUT students chanting a harsh, explicit slogan against the Supreme Leader. Having blocked all exits, the thugs attacked students, injuring and arresting dozens.
This year, to prevent student rallies on the anniversary of the protests, the authorities took a variety of measures, adding guards, installing cameras, summoning and suspending students, even changing the academic calendar to ensure campus was not busy in mid-September.
The ‘cleansing’ of professors is yet another attempt to 'tame’ the campuses. It has become so widespread and so crass that a cautious figure like the former president Hassa Rouhani has come out against it.
On the other hand, however, hardline lawmakers have demanded even harsher measures against academics who step “out of line.”
“A member of faculty is employed to advance the system’s objectives,” said Fereydoon Abbasi, a hardline MP who once headed Iran’s Atomic Energy Organisation, “a professor has to teach students according to the system’s objectives and conduct research on topics that the system wants.”
With such sentiments prevalent among the Islamic Republic’s officials, it is likely that many more members of faculty will be sacked in the next few weeks, often on false administrative pretenses.
“The bottom line is, they don’t like universities,” the SUT professor concluded, “they don’t like the spirit, the liveliness, the curiosity. University is where you learn, or you are supposed to learn, to think critically. And critical thinking is anathema to the Islamic Republic.”
