Iran's Government Arrests Prominent Critic To Serve Jail Term

Around eight percent of those eligible showed up at the polling stations on Friday, highlighting the near-complete rupture between the people and the state in Iran –a country where turnouts higher than 50 percent were a given until recently.

“The second round of elections has ended. Thank God people created an epic,” interior minister Ahmad Vahidi posted on X, causing a backlash that was as funny as it was irate.

“Dear minister for interior, is an eight-percent turnout in a run-off election epic,” Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a deputy to the former President Khatami asked. “You either don’t know what 8 percent is, or you don’t know what epic is.”

It wasn’t just the ‘reformist’ Abtahi though. Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi, a former intelligence man who headed the Ministry of Communications until three years ago, ridiculed the interior minister with a comment right under his original post on X.

“By epic, he likely means those 92 percent that didn’t take part [in the run-off election] in Tehran,” Jahromi wrote. “God bless those who were in charge of this election.”

The scornful tone was echoed by many ordinary users of social media who couldn’t help underlining the irony, the unabashed denial of daylight at noon by the IRGC-commander turned interior minister Vahidi.

“More people have posted a picture of the northern lights than took part in the run-off elections in Tehran,” one said, referring to the natural phenomenon that normally occurs in northern latitudes, but which on Saturday had been spotted in Iran.

Just above half a million voted in the capital Tehran, where eligible voters numbered near eight million, according to official data. The candidate with the most votes got around 270,000 or 3.5 percent of those eligible to vote. It was more or less the same story in 21 other constituencies that had to hold a run-off, including major cities such as Mashhad, Tabriz and Shiraz.

The ultra-hardline daily Kayhan, which is widely believed to be the unofficial voice of the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, and which splashes on its front page any election story, gave this one a side box with a small-font headline. More interestingly, it rephrased Vahidi’s “epic” statement so that the much-ridiculed word would not feature on its own.

The elections Friday, the “epic” statement, and the reactions to it, put together, were a telling example of all that’s wrong with the regime in Iran: lack of legitimacy, blundering incompetence, factionalism, and above all, widespread scorn for official politics and the institutions of state.

The turnout –historically and strikingly low– no longer seems to be a backlash against the Guardian Council and its blocking of ‘reformist’ candidates. It looks much more like a complete and final abandonment of the game, no matter who gets (or doesn’t get) to play.

A ‘parliament’ filled with Members elected by one-digit percentages of eligible voters is obviously not representative. More important, however, and more ominous for those ruling Iran, perhaps, is that hardly anyone speaks about representation any more.

The 29-year-old from Zahedan was stabbed by unidentified assailants close to the Intelligence Department on Tuesday and died from his injuries, according to Haalvsh news, which covers the events in Sistan-Baluchestan province.

Abdulhamid urged the authorities to “investigate and clarify this matter as soon as possible since the murderers have not been arrested, and this has further agitated the people.

“Whoever committed this crime and stabbed the heart of Bilal Nasruyi should be arrested and punished,” said the top religious leader of Iran’s predominantly Sunni Baluch minority population in his Friday prayer sermons.

According to the report of Haalvsh News, after singing a protest song about two years ago, Nasruyi was "sought after" by the intelligence agencies of the Islamic Republic and "threatened with assassination several times." He ultimately had to leave Iran but returned recently after the “clan's elders stepped in to help”. A huge number of dissident artists and celebrities are persecuted under the regime, most recently, rapper Toomaj Salehi was sentenced to death.

According to the UK-based Baloch Activists Campaign, Nasruyi had repeatedly told his relatives that if "I die, understand that I had no enemies and that the forces of the Islamic Republic killed me."

In Iran's mostly Sunni Baluchistan province, the Baluch community has been among the most persecuted in Iran, with the highest execution rate.

In December, the UN Special Rapporteur on Iran stated that the level of killings, torture, and brutality against the Baluch minority in Iran was “shocking.”

Javaid Rehman pointed out that the Iranian criminal justice system disproportionately targets and executes Baluchis.

Zahedan has been in turmoil since security forces, under the command of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), killed an estimated 80-90 civilian protesters in the Bloody Friday massacre.

However, tensions took a steeper turn recently due to the increased terror activities of the Sunni Baluch insurgent group Jaish al-Adl (Army of Justice), which advocates for enhanced Baluch rights and improved living conditions.
Retaliatory attacks have been launched by the IRGC against Jaish al-Adl following attacks attributed to the group.

"The army, relying on the capabilities of domestic experts, is fully capable of securing the country's maritime, terrestrial, and aerial boundaries," Irani stated on Saturday.

He also stressed on the importance of securing Iran’s regime amid the ongoing uprising, a task he described as “significant that must be pursued by all armed forces at every level.”

Despite claims of progress in domestic military technology, a notable gap persists between Iran's capabilities and those of technologically advanced nations, potentially exposing it to vulnerabilities in modern warfare, including cyber threats.

Last month, Israel and a US-led coalition intercepted the majority of an onslaught of 350 or more drones and missiles in Iran’s first direct attack on Israel.

Domestically, Iran’s government is facing a legitimacy crisis. Iran continues to grapple with internal unrest, economic hardship, widespread corruption, and social restrictions which have sparked widespread protests since 2022.

Regionally, Iran's funding of proxy groups has seen much needed funding diverted from Iran to its militias abroad.

The association has demanded the "immediate and unconditional" cancellation of the sentence, which includes property confiscation, highlighting a broader trend of crackdowns on freedom of expression within the country.

In a public statement, the association, of which Rasoulof is an honorary member, labeled the verdict as part of a "new wave of intimidation and suppression" of individual freedoms in Iran.

The group asserted that Rasoulof has not committed any offenses warranting such punishments, criticizing the regime for protecting those "who have been busy plundering the wealth, security, and freedom of the people" for over four decades.

This latest sentence continues a history of penalties for Rasoulof, who was first imprisoned in 2010 and banned from filmmaking for creating work deemed anti-regime by the authorities. His sentence was later reduced on appeal.

Despite state intimidation, Rasoulof continued to create impactful cinema, including his 2020 film There Is No Evil, which won the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival. The film critiques the oppressive measures of the Iranian regime.

In 2022, Rasoulof was again arrested after he publicly criticized the military and security forces for their role in suppressing dissent and urged them not to act against protesters.

His latest film, The Seed of the Sacred Fig, is set to be screened at this year's Cannes Film Festival, highlighting his ongoing commitment to addressing social issues through cinema.

He is one in a long line of artists including death-row rapper Toomaj Salehi to be give disproportionate sentences for dissent amid the regime’s crackdown which has worsened since the 2022 uprising.

The run-off elections were held for 45 of the 290 seats in the Islamic Consultative Assembly (Majles), with voting taking place in the capital and 21 other constituencies. This included two seats in Mashhad, Iran's second-largest city, four seats in Tabriz, and two seats in Shiraz, both ranking as the fifth-largest cities in the country.

In Tehran, candidates vied for sixteen of the city’s total 30 seats. The preliminary results show a turnout of between 7 and 8 percent, marking the lowest voter participation in the history of the Islamic Republic. In the Greater Tehran Area alone, 7.75 million people were eligible to vote.

This voter apathy stems from widespread dissatisfaction in recent years, particularly following the severe crackdown on the Woman, Life, Freedom protests from 2022 to 2023, and the extensive disqualification of candidates not considered insiders by the current regime. The deepening of poverty also has convinced many that the Islamic Republic is simply incapable of governing for the good of citizens.

The election watchdog, the Guardian Council, not only barred political rivals such as reformists, but also many conservatives in these elections, leaving the battle to the most hardline among supporters of the Islamic Republic and its Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

The frontrunner in the run-off elections of Tehran, Bizhan Nobaveh who is a member of the ultra-hardliner Paydari Party has only gained around 270,000 votes, or 3.5 percent of eligible voters.

Nearly all candidates who have been elected so far were nominated by supporters of President Ebrahim Raisi.

Seyed Mahmoud Nabavian was the front runner in Tehran in the March elections with 597,000 votes, the least for a Tehran frontrunner in all elections since the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

Nabavian was among the fourteen candidates whose number of votes was over the minimum required to be elected in the first round on March 1, with 100,000 less than his own votes in 2016 when he came 52nd among the candidates in the capital. In the 2016 elections the 30th ranking candidate had over a million and the frontrunner, reformist Mohammadreza Aref, was elected with 1.6 million votes.

Turnout in Mashhad, Shiraz, and Tabriz is so far around 8, 15, and 8 percent, respectively.

Concerned about possible adverse consequences if they do not vote, in recent years many eligible voters, particularly civil servants, have voted, but cast blank or void ballots in protest to absence of acceptable candidates or to the general political, cultural, and economic policies of the regime. In the presidential elections of 2021, blank and void votes amounted to 3.7 million, around 13 percent of all votes.

The regime has always been deeply concerned about low turnout because officials, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, have always boasted that higher turnout in Iranian elections in comparison with some Western countries was proof of the regime’s legitimacy and popularity with its citizens.

Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi, however, has thanked the Iranians for “creating an epic” as Iranian officials including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei usually say about turnout in elections.