Rezaei Resigns as Secretary of the Expediency Council, Who Is His Replacement?
Mohsen Rezaei has resigned his position as Secretary of the Expediency Council of Iran after more than 20 years to take on the role as president Ebrahim Raisi’s economic deputy.
At the same time, Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr has been introduced as the new Secretary of the Expediency Council by Sadegh Amoli Larijani, the Council’s chairman.
Zolghadr was born in 1954 in Fasa, Shiraz, and was chosen by supreme leader Ali Khamenei to become the new Secretary of the Expediency Council. Many of his family members also hold roles within the Iranian government. His wife, Sedigheh Begum Hejazi is the Director-General of the Office of Women and Family Affairs at the Organization of Islamic Culture and Communication, while his son-in-law, Kazem Gharibabadi is the permanent representative of the clerical regime in the UN office in Vienna and the representative of Iran in the International Energy Agency.
Before the 1979 revolution in Iran, Zolghadr was a member of the Mansourun group, at which time he and Rezaei were involved in the assassinations of an American engineer and a manager of an oil company.
According to UN Security Council Resolution 1747, Zolghadr is on the sanctions list for his involvement in the regime’s nuclear and missile programs.
During the Iran-Iraq war, Brigadier General Zolghadr became one of the top commanders. During this period, he co-founded and commanded the Ramazan Garrison, a group whose activities later formed the basis of the IRGC’s foreign branch, the Quds Force. Zolghadr helped to establish a camp in 1983 which focused on terrorist activities outside of Iran and was used to train the regime’s proxy groups from Iraq.
After the end of the Iran-Iraq war, Zolghadr was appointed as the head of the IRGC’s joint headquarters due to Mohsen Rezaei’s support.
By 1997, Zolghadr had become the deputy commander of the IRGC. When then-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad came to power, Zolghadr was appointed as the Deputy Interior Minister for Security and Law Enforcement. This new role meant that he was now in charge of the National Security Council’s administration, which was tasked with coordinating the suppression of protests across Iran. It also meant that he would oversee the performance of all governors and deputy security and law enforcement officials up and down the country.
Although Bagher Zolghadr was expected to serve in the Interior Ministry for a long time due to the IRGC’s support for him, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s personal dissatisfaction with the appointment led to Zolghadr being ousted after two years.
Following his termination from the Interior Ministry position, Zolghadr was appointed to the role of advisor to the head of the judiciary, before later acting as the deputy for strategy and social protection and crime prevention. His appointment to the judiciary during Sadegh Larijani’s presidency indicated that the IRGC and Khamenei were still supporting him.
As the scale of protests in Iran increases, the Iranian regime is becoming under threat. As seen in their history, the likelihood is that they will mount repressive responses to keep these protests under control. The recent appointments to president Ebrahim Raisi’s new administration make this outcome even more likely, given their own personal histories of repression and violence.
As Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the Iranian opposition’s president said, Raisi’s cabinet is ‘the embodiment of four decades of the religious and terrorist dictatorship of the mullahs, whose mission is to counter popular uprisings, plunder national wealth and resources, step up terrorism and warmongering, and expand the unpatriotic nuclear and missiles projects’.
Real History of Iran’s ‘Holy Defense’
On September 22, 1980, the Iran-Iraq war began a war that was imposed by the regime’s first supreme leader Ruhollah Khomeini on the Iranian people. Every year the regime falsely praises this event as a victory for the Iranian people while it was only a win for its existence.
The description that this regime uses for this eight-year war is the ‘Holy Defense.’ The question is what the history of such an expression is and did we have witnessed such a thing through history.
The adjective “Holy” without any doubt is reminiscing the crusade wars. This series of wars were also called the ‘Holy War’. These wars were started to liberate the Holy Land (Jerusalem).
Pope Urban II initiated the first crusade. Pope Urban II absolved the Christian fighters and created the mental space necessary to continue the war. When a Christian soldier was sworn in, he would receive a cross from the church and become its official soldier.
In Pope Urban’s speech, there was a promise of remission of sins for whoever took part in the crusade. All who die by the way, whether by land or by sea or in the battle against the pagans, shall have immediate remission of sins.
Those who had committed more sins in their lives saw this war as a means of forgiveness for their sins. In his speeches, Pope Urban II clearly stated that forgiveness of sins will only be granted to those who are killed to reclaim Jerusalem, if they return safely, there is no forgiveness.
Exact the same event happened with Khomeini’s Iran-Iraq war, which apparently was in the name of the religion and for God and the conquer of holy places, but, has no other goal than the conquest of new lands. Instead of giving a cross to the soldiers he gave the Iranian soldiers the ‘Key to the heaven’ and with the monodies of the famous Ahangaran sent them to the front and on the minefields to pave the way for his conquest, something that mostly the ‘Basiji’ children were subjected to.
The context for one of the longest wars in the 20th century was Khomeini’s apparent interference in Iraqi affairs. Six months before the war began, Kayhan wrote in a provocative headline:
“Imam Khomeini invites Iraqi army to uprise.”
In addition to securing Khomeini’s conquest goals, the war became an excuse to confront political parties and organizations and inside the country and eliminating them.
Javad Mansouri, the first commander of the Revolutionary Guards, said:
“If there hadn’t been a war, I think the Islamic Revolution would have been defeated. [The war gave us] strength, experience. Many of us had great war outcomes. With the war we were able to suppress the counterrevolutionaries inside, to suppress the groups.”
The conquest of Khorramshahr, meaning the withdrawal of Iraq’s invading forces from Iranian territory, marked the turning point of the Iran-Iraq war. Without a doubt, this could have been a good opportunity for Khomeini to finish the war, if only he had considered the war a ‘crisis’ and not a ‘blessing.’ Nonetheless, Khomeini called the war a ‘blessing’ and a ‘gift’.
He considered peace as the ‘burial of Islam,’ while observers contend that in reality peace would have led to the burial of his regime; so, he continued to fight after the liberation of Khorramshahr.
“This battle was a great blessing for you, revealing to you the essences of you. If the war had not happened, it was unclear how we would be and what situation we would be in.” (Khomeini)
Imitating the Crusades, Khomeini called his war a war between Islam and disbelief and marked its goal of ‘conquering Quds through Karbala.’ Of course, he was not satisfied with this. His warmongers started the war first with the slogan ‘war to victory’, later they changed their slogan to ‘War to eliminate intrigue in the world.’
He made different statements for the religious aspect of this war. Let’s look at some of his positions in the message known as the ‘Charter of the Clergy’.
“Every day we have had a blessing in the war that we have used in all scenes. We exported our revolution to the world in war.
“Our war was an aid to Afghanistan, our war will follow the conquest of Palestine, our war made all the leaders of corrupt systems feel humiliated by Islam, our war followed the awakening of Pakistan and India.
“How narrow-minded are those who think that because we have not achieved the ultimate ideal on the front, then martyrdom, sacrifice, and devotion are useless! While the voice of African Islamism is from our eight-year war, the interest in Islamology of the people in America, Europe, Asia, and Africa which means the whole world is from our eight-year war.” (Khomeini’s Sahifeh (Book), C21. Pp. 283)
The losses of this devastating war only on the Iranian side were:
- 2 million dead and disabled
- 40,000 hostages
- 50 cities destroyed
- 3,000 villages destroyed
- 4 million displaced
- 7,000 missing persons
- More than $1,000 billion in material damage
Iran: Raisi’s UNGA Speech Filled With Lies and Support of Terrorism
The Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi gave his anticipated address to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) on Tuesday, despite the outcry from an international audience who objected to his appearance at the event.
Raisi opened his speech by saying that as the ‘elected of the great people of Iran’, he wants to send a message of ‘rationality, justice, and freedom’ to the world.
Rather than attend the meeting in person, Raisi elected to send a pre-recorded speech to the UNGA, most likely to avoid the backlash from outraged Iranian expats and human rights organizations, considering his past human rights abuses, most notably his involvement in the 1988 massacre where 30,000 political prisoners were brutally executed for supporting the Iranian Resistance.
In his speech, Raisi stressed the need for all parties to the nuclear negotiations to remain committed to their obligations under the terms of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and blamed the U.S. for not lifting nuclear sanctions.
It is no surprise that Raisi neglected to make any remarks on the international concern that the regime is heading towards amassing weapons-grade uranium. The UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, reported a few weeks ago that the regime has stockpiles of highly enriched uranium and consistently refuses to answer questions regarding its nuclear program.
Raisi went on to blame the West for hampering Iran’s coronavirus response by placing sanctions on medicine. Interestingly, Raisi made no mention of regime supreme leader Ali Khamenei’s ban on the import of vaccines from the U.S. and UK.
Raisi claimed that the regime decided at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic to import vaccines from reliable international sources but so-called sanctions on medicines meant that the Iranian people were unable to receive them. However, the US has stressed that no sanctions have ever been placed on medicines, medical appliances, food, or humanitarian goods.
Iran is hit by one of the worst covid pandemics in the world, with nearly 450,000 people killed since February 2020, mainly because of the regime’s criminal and destructive policies. Yet Raisi went on to call his regime ‘Asia’s medical pole’.
During his speech, Raisi stated, “The security-establishing example of the Islamic Republic is founded on regional mechanisms based on diplomacy without any external meddling. Our policy is to preserve the stability and sovereignty of all countries of the region.”
However, he neglected to mention that his regime has been funding many terrorist organizations, across the Middle East, for several years. These groups include Hezbollah in Lebanon; the Hashd Al-Shabi in Iraq; the Assad regime in Syria; and the Houthis in Yemen and many others.
Instead, he boasted about the regime’s achievements, many of which were fabricated. At the same time, Iranian expats around the world held protest rallies to expose his history of human rights abuses and crimes against humanity, as well as calling for international authorities to prosecute him in tribunals abroad.
Former political prisoners and families of prisoners and dissidents executed by Raisi and other regime officials made it clear in their rallies in the past weeks around the world that Raisi as a criminal who must be sentenced does not represent the Iranian people and he does not deserve to be given a podium to address the world.
This is what former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo in his speech at the ‘Support a Free Iran’ conference held in Washington DC by Iranian dissidents on September 29, 2021, pointed to as he said:
“Any dealings with Ebrahim Raisi will be tantamount to dealing with a mass murderer. This is not only immoral but counterproductive. Iran regime President Ebrahim Raisi should be prosecuted not next year, not next month, not tomorrow, but now.”
Iran Government’s Economic Crisis Has No Solution
Despite the Iranian government’s rumors of fighting and eliminating corruption, increasing the people’s wages, removing the subsidies of the rich, and increasing the subsidies of the poor, solving the problem of housing by creating 1 million houses every year, making the country’s agriculture independent from imports and outside sources, and creating an economic boom by improving the country’s industry, statistics are showing something else.
According to the latest update of World Bank data in July 2021, Iran’s GDP has dropped from $445 billion in 2017 to $191 billion in 2020. Iran’s GDP ranks 26th among the world’s countries in 2017 falls to the 50th in 2020.
Astronomical losses of 67 trillion Tomans by Iran’s National Bank are the next fact of Iran’s sinking economy. A recent document published by Iran’s National Bank shows that of the bank’s approximately 16 trillion tomans of demands, more than 10.5 billion tomans are suspected.
The National Bank, in addition to the heavy accumulated losses, over the past year with the acquisition of 40.4 billion tomans of income from the grant facilities and the payment of 41.3 billion tomans of deposit interest, has registered a negative operating balance of 983.9 billion tomans.
The result is increasing corruption, followed by unbearable poverty of the people. According to the statistics, the average income of the wealthiest segment of society is 34 times higher than the average income of the poorest stratum.
The expansion of rent-seeking relations has exacerbated class divisions in society and, in addition to adding to the legendary wealth of the wealthy, has rapidly increased the population below the poverty line.
The question is why, despite the promises made by the regime’s parliament and government about helping the low-income classes of society, over time we have seen an increase in the number of poor people and the opposite for wealthy people?
The answer is clear to Iranian analysts: government corruption and the accumulation of the country’s wealth by its elements, led by the supreme leader.
A place where this corruption is obvious is in the country’s stock market. How? Tehran Stock Exchange’s total index fell by 38,000 points to 1.488,000 at the close of trading in the last week.
In yesterday’s trading (September 19, 2021), the index also fell sharply by 37,991 points comparing to Wednesday, falling to 1.450,000 points.
During this period, a portion of the real money was withdrawn from the capital market, which experts had predicted would continue connecting it just to the uncertain future of the JCPOA’s negotiations and not considering the regime’s corruption in this event.
In yesterday’s trading for the second consecutive day, the net worth of changing legal ownership to real market turned negative and 845 billion tomans of real money were withdrawn from the stock exchange. The number has increased by more than 100% compared to last Wednesday, September 1, 2021.
And the fact that the regime’s hope for any economic change is just an illusion while looking at the result of the Vienna negotiations and gaining dollars like in the Obama era can be seen in the latest expression of South Korea’s Deputy Ambassador to Tehran.
According to the state-run news agency Entekhab, “referring to the $7 billion that has been blocked, South Korean Deputy Ambassador to Tehran Park Su-dak said: ‘So far, from these sources, we have been able to export only $16 million in membership fees of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations and nearly $50 million in humanitarian items such as medicines to Iran.’” (State-run news agency Entekhab, September 18, 2021)
Devastating Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Iranian Society
Iran’s Covid-19 death rates are rising rapidly, the pandemic has also had overwhelming effects on the lives of the Iranian people, not just economically but psychologically. Along with their own discussion, they also highlighted statistics and observations from some of the state-run dailies.
A report recently published by the Ministry of Cooperatives, Labor and Social Welfare indicated that the health and other living expenses of families increased again in August, increasing the inflation rate.
According to the Jahan-e Sanat daily, ‘this is the first time that the cost of treatment has increased so much, along with the cost of rent and transportation’. They explained in their publication that since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, health insurance companies are barely covering much of the treatment costs in hospitals in Iran, so people are being forced to pay up to 40% of the cost out of their own pockets.
Meanwhile, many families that are crushed under poverty have lost their breadwinners.
Statistics from the Deputy Minister of Social Welfare suggest that a child is orphaned due to the pandemic every 12 seconds in the world and in Iran alone, estimates are that 51,000 children have lost both parents to Covid-19 in the past year. However, social expert Mostafa Eghlima has said that the actual number is higher than the official figures. He said, “Probably 30,000 women went to welfare as heads of households, and the same 30,000 women have at least one or two children.”
Worryingly, the suicide rate in Iran has been rising year after year. Figures given by a member of the Board of the Scientific Society for Suicide Prevention in Iran say that the average rate is around 7.02% per 100,000 people but some provinces in the country range between 10 and 20%.
Reports from Iran indicate that the suicide rate has increased due to the Covid-19 outbreak and its resulting poverty. The suicide rate among Iranian nurses and medical professionals is rapidly rising, and more frustrated health experts express their desire to commit suicide.
Despite all the hard work that Iranian medical professionals have put in for the past year, the regime is refusing to increase their salaries and some of their wages have been delayed for months. Iranian doctors and nurses are becoming more and more frustrated as imports of vaccines are being blocked, as are imports of necessary medications and specialist equipment. All the while, the pandemic is wreaking havoc in the country.
According to Fariborz Dortaj, a member of the Central Council of the Iranian Psychological System Organization, “38% of nurses suffer from moderate to severe depression, and 37.5% have thought of suicide or were ready to commit suicide.”
The Covid-19 outbreak, coupled with the regime’s corruption and wrong economic policies, has also had a devastating effect on people’s financial situation.
Etemad daily explained that in late 2019, during the early stages of the coronavirus outbreak, the statistics ratio between the minimum wage of a worker to the average cost of a household was around 37.9 percent, while less than two years later, this has reduced to 35.3%.
This crisis could have been prevented if the regime, mainly the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, had used his financial empire to help Iranians and medical professionals or at least allowed the entry of vaccines.
Iran’s Meaningless Happiness About Its Membership in the SCO
Seeking for many years to become a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), Iran’s government tried to overcome the international sanctions and its economic difficulties, which are the result of its international terrorism and its untrusted nuclear program.
Iran also monitored the SCO’s activities from its beginning, and initial investigations to cooperate with the organization began in the summer of 2001.
After deciding a macro level in February 2005, a membership application was submitted by Iran to the Secretariat of the Organization in Beijing and Kazakhstan as its periodic head, and a few months later, in July 2005, Iran was accepted as an observer of the SCO.
Iran also requested permanent membership in the organization in 2008 but its application was postponed due to the Iranian nuclear crisis and the start of the Security Council sanctions process against Iran, given that the SCO considers itself obliged to comply with the United Nations.
Later, in 2010 and then 2014, the SCO passed two resolutions under which a country under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter and its sanctions could not become a major member of the SCO, which meant that Iran, which was under Security Council sanctions and the Chapter VII of the UN Charter, could not become a permanent member of the organization, especially since China and Russia voted to sanction Iran as two influential members of the UN Security Council.
But after the nuclear deal was signed between Iran and the P5+1 major world powers in 2015, this obstacle was lifted, but this time Iran’s call for permanent membership, which was introduced at the same time as Pakistan and India in 2015, faced almost unexpected opposition from Tajikistan due to political considerations, and ultimately unilateral sanctions by the then US President Donald Trump administration were also effective in the delay.
Two subjects that Iran considers gaining with its membership in the SCO are a security umbrella and economic boom by having the opportunity to circumvent the sanctions by Western powers, but the reality says something else.
Although the SCO has a security image, it is not a military alliance like NATO that sees an attack on any of its members as an attack on all member states, so Iran will not benefit from the security umbrella that the organization may create, because the Shanghai Cooperation Organization does not have the necessary cohesion against international issues, and U.S. and NATO policies sometimes create a dichotomous between its members.
On the other hand, although the organization has gradually put economic, commercial, and cultural cooperation on the agenda, it is not a special economic and commercial organization like ASEAN, therefore Iran’s government cannot count on its membership in this organization and expect an economic development.
Iran’s relations with two of the main members of this organization Russia and China were never based on strategic dimensions. These two countries have always used Iran’s government as a lever in their relationship with the West, making Iran’s government a puppet in some strategic events in this region.
Therefore, despite many of the regime’s analysts consider this move as a triumph in front of the Western powers this will not be a replacement for Iran’s government in its relations with the West.
The regime cannot consider its permanent membership in this organization as a ‘no need to negotiate’ to remove the sanctions.
Because despite the claims of many Iranian officials, this organization has no interest that Iran uses this organization as a weapon against the West especially the US. Some of the members in this organization are not showing any interest to cooperate with Iran as the past years suggest.
Iran’s not joining the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is also one of the obstacles that will seriously challenge Iran’s active participation in the treaty.
Iran has no access to the international banking system and is sanctioned and this organization has no effect on these problems.
On the other hand, Russia in the field of gas production and export is a big rival to Iran, and they will not sacrifice their benefits, and this is something natural. Even if Iran benefits from China’s finances during the sanctions, China has benefited from it too, by helping Iran.
China made its financial support from Iran’s money resources in that country and a commitment that if repays did not happen Iran must pay the premium rights.
Another subject that has been discussed about this event is Iran’s possibility of making Set-Offs, but as the many years of the rule of this regime show, they were not able to have even one successful set-off even with the many efforts and negotiations.
The only set-off that has been registered in Iran’s history is the Oil-Technology Set-Off which was from before the 1979 revolution. The reason for that is that Iran has nothing to present, because of an underdeveloped economy and technology, caused by the regime’s failed policies and the destruction of the country’s development.
Regime Corruption at the Heart of Iran’s Economic Crises
As Iranian citizens are suffering under the Iranian regime’s corruption and wrong economic policies, regime officials and the country’s state media are finally acknowledging that their part in these crises.
Mardom Salarie, a state-run daily, wrote on September 19 that the skyrocketing inflation rate in Iran is having a ‘devastating effect on the country’s economy’ and on the lives of Iranian families. They explained that the inflation rates have widened the divide of classes, as many families are struggling to afford basic needs with their meager incomes.
Mardom Salarie acknowledged that nearly 25 million families live in Iran. According to economists, about 40 percent of them receive less salary than approved the laws of the Ministry of Labor, and some receive even less.
According to statistics from the Central Bank, the poverty line in Iran has reached around 10 million Tomans. On the other hand, the official income of Iranian citizens barely reaches 5 million Tomans at present.
Despite the very low incomes of Iranians, Mardom Salarie explained that the inflation in Iran continues to increase, and they have heard from many economists who predict that the situation will only get worse by the end of the year.
Many experts have examined Iran’s economic crisis. The regime and its apologists try to blame sanctions for the current economic recession in Iran, but some officials and state media acknowledge the regime’s role in creating and amplifying these crises.
In a comment from Iranian MP Hassan Lofti, published in the state-run Roudade 24, he said that the laws of the regime generate corruption, and if this continues, they will lose 80% of their political legitimacy. He also blamed the cause of the economic corruption on the ‘lack of transparency’ within the regime.
Alongside the corruption that has caused the rising rate of inflation, liquidity growth has also had a part to play. Mardom Salarie expressed that, “One of the main reasons for inflation is the growing budget deficit and the government’s inability to resolve this issue.”
To compensate for the budget deficit, the regime began printing banknotes at a rapid rate which, in turn, increased Iran’s liquidity. The inflation rate rose rapidly due to the production rate being far behind the growth of liquidity and continues to rise to this day.
According to Mardom Salarie, Iran’s inflation rate has reached more than 45% this August. This is an unprecedented figure, and it is predicted to reach 60% with the current budget deficit and Tehran’s inability to grow trade.
As Mardom Salarie explained, “…the government should either control inflation or prevent the increase of prices by subsidizing the consumer or increase the salaries so that the people can cover their expenses.”
They said that while the government is still facing a budget deficit, it is unlikely that salaries will be raised so it is likely the situations of Iranian families will only worsen in the coming months.
As MP Lotfi acknowledged, the regime has long lost its political legitimacy after years of corruption coupled with oppression. As a result, people’s protests and their anger toward the regime continue to increase.
Iran: Teacher Suicide Is Increasing
These days, some people in Iran no longer find a way to express their pain, therefore, commit suicide in order to end it. Violent suicides and public ones are becoming the cry of protest of Iran’s suffering people, including teachers.
In June 2020, Hossein Gohar Shenas, a 68-year-old Bushehr teacher, hanged himself due to poverty, with a rope that he had prepared himself, but what drove him to take his own life was the exorbitant cost of living and the negligence of officials and his livelihood conditions.
In July of this year, Amin Kianpour, a 43-year-old math teacher in Isfahan, set himself on fire in front of the city’s judiciary over a dispute over a civil case and failure to receive his rights, so that his cry might finally be heard. In August, a teacher on the verge of retirement and with 31 years of service in Nain’s education ended his life.
Some have heard that just a few days ago, a teacher from Fars Province threatened to commit suicide due to his inability to secure a mortgage. The threat of suicide was so serious that his friends solved his problem by collecting money.
Even now, the news of the suicide of a teacher in the city of Gerash is coming from Fars Province. The 32-year-old teacher, Gholamabbas Yahyapour, hanged himself at school, citing financial problems and a loan application.
One teacher in Fars Province, who did not want to be named, said of the teachers’ livelihood problems: ‘Since I was employed in education, I have always seen teachers protesting about their salary and livelihoods more than 20 years ago. Teachers’ legal status is extremely low compared to other government employees.
‘A number of my colleagues have spoken to representatives of Shiraz in parliament about their legal problems, but the answer they heard was that your salary with other civil servants is equal, whereas it is not the case ever teachers have is in their pay stubs and are deprived of job benefits and welfare.’
Iran has a few types of teachers in education. There is a group of corporate teachers operated by contractors who rented schools and their salary is ultimately one million tomans and are mostly present in deprived areas. There are many of these contractors in Sistan and Baluchestan Province. Some of them have even lower wages about 500,000 tomans. They have no insurance and if they are covered by insurance, their wages will become less than one million. And sometimes it takes one year or more than they are paid.
The other group of teachers is entitled part-time teachers, which numbers about 120,000 to 150,000. This year’s salary was about 2 to 2.5 million Tomans. These teachers are deprived of salaries and insurance during the summer and end up paying for the insurance themselves.
The other group is young teachers who entered schools from the Educators University or were recruited through Article 28. These teachers are either contractual or their recruitment has been finalized. The group’s salary, even if they serve five years, is less than 4 million Tomans. In addition, insurance, pensions, and taxes are also deducted from their pay stubs, i.e. about one million tomans are deducted from their salaries.
Teachers working in nonprofit schools have also actually been subjected to modern slavery. Their salary is about 1.2 million tomans a month. This double cruelty occurs in nonprofit schools that earn billions of tomans from student tuition fees, but that’s how teachers are oppressed.
Life for Iran’s teachers has become very difficult. None of them can buy a house, while in other countries teachers are among the best-paid classes of society. Due to the wages, there is no difference between the rural and municipal teachers, but the costs are different.
Many teachers in recent months and years have decided to protest this situation, but every day will have painful blows because of not being paid. Therefore, many of them while fearing the regime’s cruelty are not able to protest while struggling with their daily food.
A society in which its teachers are suffering and decide to commit suicide is a collapsed society, and one can only imagine the situation of the country’s youths who are educated by these suffering teachers.
Raisi’s Corrupt Administration Announces Plans To Combat Government’s Corruption
Ebrahim Raisi, the new president of the Iranian regime, has announced that he and his administration will be tackling corruption in the form of the ‘twelve principles governing the national plan for preventing and combating administrative and economic corruption’.
Iran is suffering from institutionalized corruption. The country’s economy is dominated by the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) and the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Raisi’s cabinet is filled with the IRGC’s officials and Khamenei’s inner circles.
Astan-e Quds Razavi (AQR) is one of the largest endowment foundations in the Middle East, and formerly had Raisi involved in its operations as the caretaker. In a report by the Iranian Resistance regarding the AQR, the assets of the financial institution include around 50 large companies and at least 43% of the real estate in Iran’s second most- populated city, Mashhad. The institution is also exempted from paying any tax to the Iranian government.
In an interview with the state-run Alef news agency, government minister Behzad Nabavi explained that there are 4 institutions in Iran that control around 60% of the national wealth and claimed that none of them are in connection with the government or parliament. These institutions include the Executive Headquarters of Imam’s Directive (Setad Ejraie Farman Imam), Khatam-ol-Anbiay Base, Astan-e Quds, and Foundation of the Oppressed and Disabled.
In other words, Raisi oversaw one of Iran’s main corrupted institutions. Raisi later became the regime’s Judiciary Chief in 2019, another apparatus plagued with corruption. On May 11, Gholamhossein Esmaili, then Judiciary’s spokesperson, confirmed the arrest of 200 judiciary staff members.
Mohammad Mokhber, Raisi’s first vice-president, has also been involved with another financial institution, the ‘Execution of Khomeini’s Order (EIKO)’. He has headed the organization for 13 years from 2007 and controlled its billions of dollars of assets.
Mokhber was included in the EU sanctions list in 2010 for his role in the regime’s missile and nuclear activities and placed on the US sanctions list on January 15, 2016, for seizing the assets of political opponents and religious minorities.
When Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei banned the entry of credible Covid-19 vaccines into Iran earlier this year and instead encouraged the production of domestic vaccines, it was Barkat Pharmaceutical Group owned by EIKO that was tasked with the production of them. Mokhber oversaw the production line and despite the domestic vaccines being unapproved by the World Health Organization for their deadly side effects, the vaccine went on sale to the public.
Along with Raisi and Mokhber, another regime official in Raisi’s administration, Construction minister Rostam Ghasemi has a history with the regime’s own corrupt institutions. He previously served as commander of the Khatam-ol-Anbiya Base, and later took the position of Oil minister in Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s administration. In his role as oil minister, Ghasemi was involved with embezzlement, bribery, and financial irregularities, amongst other financial crimes.
The regime has milked Iran and its people from their wealth. They do not accept these hollow promises, as they underline in their slogans during their daily protests that ‘enough with lies, our tables are empty’.
Iran’s Media Warns of Civil Disobedience by the Middle Class
The situation of Iran’s middle class is becoming day after day more critical, and the people’s toleration is weakening more and more, and the regime’s officials are calling this the red line.
A situation that has driven the middle class to a position of riots and protests. So far that the state-run media are writing about something that is not usual in censored Iran’s media.
The state-run daily Mostaghel daily in an article entitled “the Conservative middle class” wrote:
“The government’s inability to address issues such as inflation and other economic problems, as well as the coronavirus issue and its peripheral problems, has left the middle class generally dissatisfied and complaining about the status quo.”
This news daily concluded: “With the double economic pressure, the purchasing power of the middle class has decreased, and this class has moved closer to the lower class, and this integration and transformation can lead to civil disobedience in the long run.”
Following the concern expressed by this daily the state-run daily Mardom Salari in an article entitled “The people with the contraction of the government does not accept any excuse” wrote:
“A large part of society lives below the poverty line. This problem is also very serious. Another issue that the government will face is systematic corruption. This systematic corruption has practically turned the government and the bureaucratic organization that should serve the society into a mechanism that systematically produces corruption, dissatisfaction, and inefficiency. In this regard, if no solution is devised, the government and first of all the members of the cabinet and the president will be swallowed up in this cycle of corruption and inefficiency.”
The people’s hatred for this corruption is increasing. So much so that even the regime’s officials are forced to admit and attack people and organizations which are under the control of the supreme leader or the IRGC.
On September 15, 2021, a cleric and lawmaker Nasrollah Pejmanfar in the parliamentary session at this day about the increasing and protected corruption in the country said:
“What is going on in this country, are we allowing that such things stay hidden. In which place in the world such things are hidden and classified? Through the Article 90 Commission, I wrote a letter to some of these institutions, an official, and said announce your income. Its chef wrote, confidential, top secret and sent it to me.
“They are rent-seeking from everything, even for a bakery, from a bakery license they are seeking rents. Today we are ashamed of a young, educated man who has a master’s degree and a doctorate and is ashamed and is asking for a worker right to be able to work at someplace.” (ICANA, September 15, 2021)
Then Mohsen Dahnavi, another MP, about this corruption and situation of the young people asked, “Unemployed youth, many of whom are also educated, so what is the cause of this unemployment?” He then pointed to the regime’s corruption and said:
“It takes two years if a young man today wants to run a cattle farm, he needs 118 documents and approvals, and one and a half years, we waste his time in the stairwells and corridors so that he becomes tired and forgets the job creation.
“Where in the world is such a situation. There is the capital, unemployed young professionals exist, and its need exists too, but some people are getting rich by giving licenses, then who gets a license in this space? Those who have connections.” (ICANA, September 15, 2021)
In reality, many officials are suffering from something called, “The illusion of understanding the truth” syndrome, as has been described by some state media reports. This is a syndrome that can become dangerous for the public and for the officials themselves, analysts say.
In a society like Iran where the people are tired of politics, the officials think that they are specialized in any field and can express themselves about anything and give expert opinions. The first outcome of such a vision is the destruction of the country’s elites.
Eventually, the society’s old wounds which have been accumulated over the years will appear again and force the people to riot and desire to overthrow the regime – something which the regime fears most.
