IRGC Ex-Commander Vows To Counter ‘Hijab Removal’

Industry activists have identified government blocking of Google Play as the primary obstacle hindering the growth of the gaming industry. According to Donya-e-Eqtesad newspaper in Tehran, Iranian game developers say that the government's directive to filter Google Play has resulted in a significant loss of 30 to 40 percent in revenue for companies in this sector.

Mohammad Mehdi Esmaeili, the Minister of Culture recently announced President Ebrahim Raisi's directive to draft a comprehensive document on computer games. However, industry activists have criticized the drafting of new laws for the sector as futile.

Ali Nadalizadeh, a publisher of mobile games in Iran, has emphasized the removal of the Google Play filter as the most pressing concern in the sector. He argues that “since the gaming sector in the country has been legislatively addressed before, there is no need for new laws.”

Experts caution that the blocking of Google Play has severely impeded game producers' advertising capacity, with domestic alternatives unable to compensate for the loss. In January 2023, the Computer Guild Organization of Iran warned the Minister of Communications about the adverse effects of Google Play filtering, citing a decline in users, reduced developer income, and widespread unemployment among specialized personnel.

The Iranian government's broader internet restrictions, implemented following nationwide protests after the killing of Mahsa Amini in police custody in 2022, initially led to the temporary filtering of Google Play. However, the permanent removal of the government app Rubika from the platform prompted authorities to maintain the filter.

Despite ongoing concerns raised by industry stakeholders, the government has yet to provide a clear rationale for the continued blocking of Google Play.

"Blocking the media accounts of the supreme leader of the revolution is not only a violation of freedom of speech but also an insult to millions of followers of his views," he told Middle East Eye news website on Friday.

Hailing Khamenei as “the most prominent supporter of the oppressed people of Palestine and Gaza,” Iran’s top diplomat attributed Meta’s suspension of the Supreme Leader’s pages in February to a larger campaign allegedly aimed at oppressing pro-Palestinian voices on social media.

The criticism contradicts Iran's own extensive censorship of the internet and social media for more than two decades. Most najor social media platforms and tens of thousands of websites are blocked in Iran.

Amir-Abdollahian denounced the West’s motto of freedom of expression as “hollow and showy,” further adding that it serves as a cover for what he called the West’s “illegitimate political goals.”

The Iranian regime has been a staunch supporter of Palestinian militant groups, including Hamas which invaded Israel on October 7 in what was the most deadly single day for Jews since the Holocaust. The attack killed 1,200 mostly civilians and saw 240 taken hostage to Gaza.

Both Iranian dissidents and pro-Israeli activists have for long urged social media companies to shut down Khamenei’s accounts over restricting access to the Interment inside Iran and also his anti-Semitic remarks and policies.

Welcoming Meta’s move, many Iranian social media users urged Elon Musk to follow suit and deactivate Khamenei’s accounts on X.

In January, Samara Azzi, a Lebanese commentator, warned of coordinated operations of an Iran-backed “cyber army” to silence anti-Hamas and anti-Hezbollah voices on X.

The pro-Iranian cyber army is “gaming the platform’s limited moderation controls in English and especially Arabic to suppress criticism and amplify their own narrative,” she said.

This can also signal Khamenei's weakness in controlling the ultraconservatives he helped bring to power in an election on March 1 with the lowest turnout in the Islamic Republic's history.

The latest indications of disobedience emerged within hours of Khamenei's advice and orders to hardliners to avoid disgraceful confrontations with each other.

Hamid Rasaei, a former hardliner lawmaker with a questionable reputation, who was disqualified to run in the 2020 parliamentary election, got the go ahead to run this year and won a seat at the parliament (Majles). Within a few days of his election, Rasaei attacked the incumbent Majles Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and his predecessor Gholam-Ali Haddad Adel and called for Ghalibaf's removal from his post.

Both the incumbent and former speakers happen to be relatives of Khamenei. Iranian pundits predicted that granting too much leverage to the ultraconservatives would one day lead them to turn against the leader. It took only a few days for this prediction to come true.

Rasaei wrote in a tweet Friday evening that IRGC-linked Fars News Agency has called for rejecting his credentials as a member of parliament. Rasaei added defiantly that the IRGC agency's threat does not scare him.

As if that was not enough to signal the disobedience that was swiftly responded to by an IRGC media outlet, hours after Khamenei's speech on Thursday, Rasaei repeated his accusations against Ghalibaf once on X (previously known as Twitter) and again on live state television.

Rasaei tweeted that Ghalibaf should be removed from his post as Majles Speaker because he has won only around 400,000 votes in the election while he had won more than 1,200,000 votes in 2020. The decline in Ghalibaf's popularity meant that a major change should occur in the leadership of the parliament.

On prime-time Thursday evening, Rasaei repeated that in a live program on the state television and charged that Tasnim News Agency and Javan Newspaper, two of the media outlets of Iran's revolutionary Guards (IRGC), which he said support Ghalibaf, have attacked him subsequently.

Rasaei also claimed that Khamenei's advice to newly elected lawmakers to avoid conflicts and controversies did not address him. This comes while Tasnim News Agency made it clear on its official X account that Rasaei's statements on state TV were clearly in contravention of Khamenei's remarks.

However, the state TV's deputy chief for political affairs, Alireza Khodabakhshi, was fired the day after, possibly for allowing Rasaei to utter his provocative remarks on air. Khodabakhshi is a an ultraconservative Paydari figure.

In another sign of disobedience to Khamenei, Hassan Bayadi, one of the founders of Abadgaran, a political organization that gave rise to Paydari Party and supported former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and is currently a staunch supporter of the Raisi administration, accused the older generation of lawmakers of not knowing what to say and what not to say.

The Iranian Labor News Agency (ILNA) quoted Bayadi as using an expression Haddad Adel had used to describe the new ultraconservatives and older politicians. Haddad Adel had likened older conservatives such as Ghalibaf to big trees and the new ultraconservatives as tiny plants. Bayadi said in the interview with ILNA: "May God help us! The totalitarian big trees at the Parliament do not know what to say and what not to say."

Bayadi, who has been so far close to Khamenei's office, also made unforgivable mistakes in that statement: First he attacked Khamenei's relatives, and second, he did not abide by Khamenei's advice to avoid controversies and conflicts among insiders.

The occurrence of two such cases in one day, make it difficult for Khamenei to re-establish his authority in the eyes of his devoted followers who used to see him as an infallible God-like father figure. Almost everyone has seen the signs of aging and illness in Khamenei's face and posture, despite his attempt to walk without a walking stick to prove his fitness.

As conservative activist and analyst Abdolrahim Ansari pointed out, Khamenei did not ask ordinary social media activists to avoid infighting and controversy. He was addressed candidates who have been elected with his blessing without the right qualifications in an engineered election.

Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly made the announcement on the International Women's Day, targeting Masoud Dorosti, the chief executive of Tehran's metro system, and Zohreh Elahian, a conservative parliamentarian.

Dorosti is responsible for enforcing Iran's mandatory hijab law on public transit, and Elahian, a vocal supporter of measures including the death penalty for protesters, have been accused of leveraging their positions to enforce increasingly repressive measures against women and girls in Iran.

“These two individuals have used their positions of influence to call for or carry out increasingly repressive measures against women and girls in Iran,” Joly’s office said.

The move marks Canada's latest effort to respond to the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in 2022, who died in police custody after allegedly being arrested for incorrectly wearing her hijab and the subsequent bloody repression of protests in Iran.

So far, Canada has sanctioned 155 individuals and 87 entities connected to human rights abuses in Iran. Those on the sanctions list are barred from entering Canada and conducting business with Canadians.

The Iranian regime continues its policies of punishing women for removal of hijab. Aziz Jafari, former commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, announced this week that the government will undertake new measures against hijabless women.

Addressing hijab enforcer agents on Friday, he said, "I regret not being able to accompany you on the field due to physical limitations. The removal of hijab is a major cultural problem for us that can strike at the root of the revolution."

Ever since Hamas’ rampage of Israel on 7 October and the ensuing Israeli onslaught on Gaza, Iran has intensified its indirect campaign against American and Israeli interests, utilizing armed groups that it funds, equips, and trains across the Middle East.

But to attempt an assassination in Peru, in South America, suggests a different level of brazenness on Iran’s part and an almost complete absence of US deterrence.

Majid Azizi was arrested earlier this week for allegedly plotting with a Peruvian national to attack an Israeli citizen at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), scheduled to be held later this year in Peru. A third individual is reportedly on the run, according to a police statement.

"We had to act quickly because today [Majid Azizi] was set to return to Iran after forming a terrorist cell to wipe out an Israeli national" who was going to participate in the APEC event, Peru's police chief Oscar Arriola said.

Azizi, 56, holds Peruvian citizenship by marriage and has had regular trips to the country for many years, the last of which was in ‘early March’, allegedly to set up the assassination plan and leave. He is now under investigation for “terrorism against the state,” according to Peru’s ministry of interior.

Peruvian authorities have identified the Israeli citizen who was to be targeted but have not revealed their identity for security reasons.

This is the second time in the last decade that Iran has attempted an attack on Israelis in Peru. In 2014, a Hezbollah operative called Mohammed Amadar was arrested in Lima on suspicion of plotting against Israeli and Jewish targets. Later, the police found explosives and detonators in the Lebanese residence.

This time, however, the alleged plotter is not Lebanese but Iranian. And the authorities in Peru say he is a member of IRGC’s Quds Force. If true, the arrest could mark a significant moment as there’s no proxy ‘cover’ to help deny culpability for the regime in Tehran.

The revelation may not be significant enough to sway those who oppose the designation of IRGC as a terrorist organization in many European and other democratic countries. It may weaken their opposition, however, especially if more information emerges and the Quds Force connection is proven beyond doubt.

The Quds Force, the overseas arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, is widely believed to be behind most attacks against the United States and its allies across the Middle East, from Hezbollah in Lebanon to the Houthis in Yemen and an array of armed groups in Iraq and Syria –all visibly emboldened in the past few years, and since October 7th, in particular.

Critics of President Joe Biden lay this issue squarely at his door. Biden and his team, they say, have eroded deterrence by their unwillingness to confront Iran and impose “costs” on the regime for all the ‘malign activities’ in the region that they admit comes out of Tehran.

“It is indisputable that Tehran controls its proxies, and those proxies have killed Americans,” Senator Roger Wicker (R-MISS) said in a Senate Armed Service Committee hearing Friday. “Iran's objective is and has always been to evict the United States from the Middle East so it can achieve regional hegemony.”

The hearing, titled Posture of US Central Command and US Africa Command in Review of the Defense Authorization Request for Fiscal Year 2025 and the Future Years, saw many senators denouncing the Biden administration for its Iran policy.

“President Biden ordered minor counter strikes on Iran's proxies in Syria, Iraq, and Yemen,” Wicker continued. “This approach has failed and will fail because it assumes that we can deter terrorist groups without causing pain to their chief sponsor, Iran.”

A key witness at the hearing was General Michael Kurilla, Commander of the US Central Command, who refrained from any criticism of the administration while offering a clear picture of the situation with Iran.

“Iran is undeterred in support to the Houthi,” he said, “they are undeterred in their support to Hezbollah, their support to Hamas, the support into the West Bank. They are deterred right now in Iraq and Syria and their support to the Iranian aligned militia groups, but not in terms of attacks, but not necessarily in terms of their funding and equipping.”