Some Iranian Newspapers Ignore Gag Order In Corruption Case
Iran’s Supreme National Security Council ordered newspapers Tuesday night to stop writing about the recent $3.7 billion corruption case that has rattled public opinion.
Iran’s Supreme National Security Council ordered newspapers Tuesday night to stop writing about the recent $3.7 billion corruption case that has rattled public opinion.
Nonetheless, three Iranian newspapers ignored the censorship order and ran editorials on the biggest corruption case in several decades in their Wednesday issues. The case involved a tea company receiving billion of dollars from the government with favorable exchange rate for imports but selling the currency in the open market for a hefty profit.
The bravest article appeared on Jahan-e Sanat newspaper. Nader Karimi Jooni, one of the daily's editors wrote, "In a questionable measure, the Supreme National Security Council has called on media managers not to report anything on the corruption case at the Debsh Tea Company any longer." Jooni added that it is not strange that the issue of corruption has turned into a national security issue. "Earlier, not only the press, but also members of the public had been barred from speaking about corruption."
The article was referring to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's statement in 2015 ordering the people and the press “to stop discussing corruption as this would be disappointing for the country's officials." Khamenei made the statement after a big embezzlement case in the government-controlled banking system.
According to Jahan-e Sanat, such orders are at times also issued by the Iranian Judiciary, and those who refuse to obey the order will end up in jail. The daily pointed out that the SNSC's order is in contrast with President Ebrahim Raisi's frequently declared policy about confronting financial corruption. The newspaper then asked how a President, who calls for confrontation with corruption, can order the press to stop talking about the biggest such case in the past 45 years.
The daily concluded that either Raisi was not honest in making the statement about confronting corruption, or he does not want the issue to be tackled for some reason. The daily further insisted that the press should call for the punishment of those who have benefitted from illegal privileges and concession they received from the government.
Another Tehran daily, Abrar, pointed out that the recent Debsh Tea company’s case is the biggest instance of financial corruption in Iran and not only its managing director should be held accountable, but the government institutions involved in keeping the case secret for months. Presumably the all-powerful Judiciary, the Police, the Customs Administration and the Ministry of Intelligence were all aware and responsible for that. The daily said: "It is surprising that no action has been taken in this regard and no report has been given to the nation about the case. The officials are taking it easy and simply ignore the case as if nothing has happened."
Ironically, Abrar's article about the corruption case was printed next to an article in which President Raisi is quoted as saying that government watchdogs should go easy with managers of state companies and institutions.
The third Iranian daily that discussed the corruption case was Hamdeli, which featured two reports about the corruption case. In one article, Hamdeli wrote: "While the country is facing sanctions and economic difficulties, giving such a large amount of money to a company is an example of financial corruption. But is this going to be Iran's last corruption case?"
The daily then questioned supervisory organizations such as the parliament, the Central Bank of Iran, the Customs Administration's performance and asked why they did not notice such a big corruption taking place.
In another article Hamdeli noted that the tea company in question has also been involved in exporting bitumen on behalf of the government-owned oil industry. Meanwhile, other reports quoted Ahmad Osanlu, the head of the government's "Religious Punishments Organization" as having said that foreign currency continued to be allocated to Debsh even after the authorities received some 50 complaints about wrongdoings in the company.
All this come while Alireza Panahian, an insider at Khamenei's office has encouraged hardliners to gather wealth at any price. He further opined that the country's resources should be left in the hands of religious youths.
German lawmaker Norbert Röttgen has accused his country’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, of lying to the international community that the IRGC cannot be outlawed in Europe.
In a significant escalation of the sparring between Röttgen and the Green party controlled foreign ministry, the Christian Democratic party MP took to X on Monday to announce: “Baerbock has been deceiving the public for almost a year and is deliberately telling a untruth in the Bundestag regarding the expert opinion report on the terrorist listing of the Revolutionary Guards. This in no way says that listing is currently not possible.”
Baerbock, who claims to have a “feminist foreign policy,” has mirrored the comments of EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell for nearly a year that "as of now, we don't have legal grounds in the EU to list the Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization."
Baerbock, whose Green party has faced criticism over the years for embracing an appeasement policy toward the clerical regime in Tehran, argued that an expert opinion of the European Council lawyers prevented the IRGC from being sanctioned.
Röttgen linked in X post to an article in the left-wing German paper Die Tageszeitung (known in Germany as taz) that reported it obtained a classified EU expert opinion that established Baerbock lied to the international community.
According to die taz, the EU expert opinion states the legal service of the European Council determined that legal decisions outside the EU determining that the IRGC engaged in acts of terror could be used as a basis for banning it. “If the Council relies on a decision of a third country, it must ensure that this decision was taken in compliance with the rights of the defense and the right to effective legal protection,” the opinion reads.
Borrell appeared to have also misled the international community in January, when he claimed that an EU legal decision is necessary to designate the IRGC as a terrorist entity. Röttgen and counter-terrorism experts such as Matthew Levitt have mounted significant evidence to show that Borell and Baerbock are not on solid ground with their arguments against a ban of the IRGC.
The German paper asked a number of legal experts for their assessment of the classified EU expert opinion. “The positions of the legal service do not provide a convincing justification against the terrorist listing. The impression is that the federal government is hiding behind weak legal arguments,” said Matthias Herdegen from the University of Bonn.
The EU’s classified legal opinion presented legal verdicts from the US in 2020 and 2018 that showed the IRGC was responsible for blowing up the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996. However, the EU said the cases from Khobar are not current enough to form the basis for a ban of the IRGC.
Christian Marxsen, Professor of Public Law and International Law at the Humboldt University in Berlin, told die taz, “The report discusses the legal requirements for listing as a terrorist organization…there is no statement in the report as to whether there are other points of reference – for example further court or administrative decisions from other countries – for such a listing.”
Iran International reported in late November that a German court convicted a Pakistani man in 2017 who was paid by the IRGC to engage in an assassination attempt of pro-Israel advocates.
The Quds Force—a part of the IRGC—paid Pakistani Syed Mustaf at least 2,052 euros from July 2015 to 2016 to spy on Jewish and Israeli institutions and carry out the assassination plot. The case of Mustaf could be used by the EU to outlaw the IRGC, according to experts.
The taz reported that “There are numerous voices in and around the Foreign Office who reject the Revolutionary Guard's terrorist listing.” One voice is Guido Steinberg who is a Senior Associate at the Middle East and Africa Research Division of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP).
Steinberg told the German magazine Stern in July that he is against the listing of the IRGC as a terrorist organization because the IRGC is a normal military force. This is an argument that Tehran often uses despite the fact that the IRGC has a large intelligence organization engaged in domestic repression and also has its own espionage network abroad.
The US government classified the IRGC a terrorist entity in 2019.
The German Institute for International and Security advises the German foreign ministry and has been embroiled in pro-Hamas and antisemitism scandals this year. In July, Israel’s embassy in Berlin slammed the institute’s researcher Muriel Asseburg for suggesting in an interview with a hardcore anti-Israel activist that terrorism attacks against Israelis can be dismissed as not significant and there should be support for Palestinians' right to "violent resistance" against the "Israeli occupation.”
The German Institute for International and Security has been plagued by its efforts to promote a partnership with Iran’s regime. In 2008, a Wall Street Journal opinion article stated Volker Perthes, the former director of the controversial institute has “been lobbying for more than two years for a ‘strategic partnership’ with a Holocaust-denying regime that sponsors international terror and suppresses its own people.”
Press queries sent to Baerbock’s spokesman Sebastian Fischer and spokeswoman, Tittel, as well as to German interior minister spokesman Björn Bowinkelmann ,were not returned. Iran International phone calls to both ministries were not answered.