Nationwide Strike By Gold Retailers Sweeps Across Iran
Gold jewelers across Iran have shuttered their shops, joining a merchants' strike that has now spread to multiple cities, including Tehran, Tabriz, Hamedan, Mashhad and Isfahan.
Gold jewelers across Iran have shuttered their shops, joining a merchants' strike that has now spread to multiple cities, including Tehran, Tabriz, Hamedan, Mashhad and Isfahan.
Videos obtained by Iran International show that Islamic Republic agents have sealed the shops of protesting gold jewelers in the religious city of Mashhad on Monday.
The primary grievance driving the strike is the reactivation of the Comprehensive Trade System coupled with the introduction of a Capital Gains Tax.
These measures are part of the government's broader economic strategy to streamline market operations and enhance regulatory oversight, claims President Ebrahim Raisi's administration.
However, the implementation has not been smooth, with gold and jewelry business owners expressing concerns. The new system mandates that all manufacturers and sellers, both wholesale and retail, must register their transactions, a requirement that has exacerbated anxieties within the sector over potential financial burdens.
The discontent among gold merchants intensified Sunday, as protests continued in cities like Shiraz, Yazd, Isfahan, Mashhad, Urmia, Zanjan, Qom, and Ardebil.
In a related but separate event, merchants in Bandar Abbas also held demonstrations to protest the recent hike in the value-added tax (VAT) rate, which was increased from 9% to 10% at the start of the current Iranian year in March 2024.
Experts have voiced concerns that the tax increases, which are passed on to consumers, might further fuel inflation, which has already reached an annual rate of over 50%, as reported by the Central Bank of Iran.
Their remarks mainly target the government's handling of issues related to compulsory hijab and financial misconduct. They question why individuals like Tehran Friday Prayers Imam Kazem Sedighi, who confessed to appropriating a $20-million land in Tehran, remain unprosecuted and at large.
However, many such critics, fearing reprisal, opt to direct their criticism not at the Supreme Leader, but towards other officials, such as Judiciary Chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, appointed by Khamenei, who is perceived as merely executing the Supreme Leader's directives.
The most prominent cleric speaking about corruption was Grand Ayatollah Abdollah Javadi Amoli , who warned the government, or in fact Khamenei, that "the problem of hijab cannot be solved using bayonets."
Speaking about the violent crackdown on Iranian women who defy compulsory hijab, Javadi Amoli said teasingly: "Adjusting the headscarf to cover more of the hair does not guarantee chastity and will certainly not prevent financial corruption."
Meanwhile, Khabar Online website quoted the ayatollah as having said in an older tweet: "Sometimes people write to me and ask why I do not say anything about the hijab." He continued that the problem of hijab cannot be solved with harsh measures. "The only thing that kind of measures can do is to encourage people to adhere to the appearance of the hijab rules. Otherwise, the problem remains unresolved."
In another development, Jamaran news website quoted Muslim scholar Ayatollah Yadollah Douzdouzani Tabrizi as having said in reference to the land grab by Tehran Friday Prayer Imam Kazem Sedighi who apologized to Khamenei for his wrongdoing: "We cannot make such mistakes and simply apologize to make it up to others."
He reminded that whatever clerics do or say is done or said in the name of Islam. He warned that taking one wrong step by a cleric will go a long way to discredit Islam. The ayatollah said this as part of peaching to his pupils at his ethics class at the seminary.
Elsewhere, in a letter to Judiciary Chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, the centrist Ntional Development Party, asked him why he is silent in the face of organized violations of the law. According to the letter: "The re-emergence of the ‘morality police’ in the streets simultaneously with the missile attack on Israel means taking advantage of an international issue to further a domestic factional matter."
The party told Ejei: "You have deeply hurt the sentiments of our nation by equating adherence to compulsory hijab with chastity, and by urging the police to treat Iranian women who defy compulsory hijab as if they were dealing with enemy agents."
The letter further stated that "It is a shame that while the country is facing its worst economic crisis in 45 years and it is at war with Israel, authorities have assigned the police force to confront the women. What makes you think that it is part of your responsibilities to harass people's wives and daughters in the streets?"
Khabar Online published a statement by Ahmad Abdollahi, a cleric at the "Promotion of Virtues and Prohibition of Vice Headquarters as saying that: "Some 2,000 women who have been arrested for hijab, have said in interviews with officials that the introduction of the morality police has had no positive impact on the way Iranian women dress."
Along the same lines, Ayatollah Mostafa Dousti Zanjani pointed out that "The people are against the government's order to enforce compulsory hijab," adding that this has been counterproductive. The Friday Prayers Imam of Gorgan Kazem Nourmofidi also said that "In the same way that the government failed to force Iranian women to remove their headscarves in the 1930s, it is impossible to force Iranian women today to wear headscarves."
