Over the past few days, one of the biggest news stories in the Iranian regime’s media has been about its parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf’s daughter traveling to Turkey to buy nursery items, or as the media have referred to it, ‘baby-stuff-gate’.
The reaction from the Iranian people has been sheer bewilderment as this news is completely irrelevant in comparison to the regime’s hundreds of cases of embezzlement, astronomical thefts, and human rights violations. By this logic, this story should not have generated any attention.
Rightly so, it has triggered a lot of mockery and outrage from the Iranian people, as well as curses against the regime, with the story being one of the main discussions on social media over the past few days. People on social media mocked Ghalibaf’s absurd claims of supporting the poor and republished his fake and fraudulent list of assets and wealth, which he had presented during the presidential election race in 2017.
Some people have even said that men like him, and their families, have no need to travel abroad to buy something at all when they could easily order the goods instead. They have concluded that the whole story of the baby-stuff purchase was a diversion to hide something much bigger, like the regime’s money launderings, in which regime officials, like Ghalibaf, have a first-hand experience.
Addressing such an issue requires other evidence and documents. That is not the purpose of this text but examining the reasons for such a widespread social reaction is certainly worth investigating.
One of the most ingrained commonalities among the regime’s officials is their unimaginable charlatanism, a distinctive characteristic that they have inherited from the regime’s founder Ruhollah Khomeini.
In contrast, one of the characteristics of Iran’s vibrant society is its instant reaction to the regime’s actions. While the people have reached the end of their tether, nothing is left in the socio-economic and political sphere of this country that is broadcast and does not excite society’s reaction.
Now, if we add to the two characteristics mentioned above a little from the elixir of ‘freedom,’ which is the result of people’s restricted access to the internet, we gain something strange.
In a situation where all the regime’s media are censored, this little access to the free world of information, which is finding a way out through thousands of the regime’s barriers, filters, and the narrow internet bandwidth, is increasingly disgracing the regime and exposes the depth of its corruption.
Now, we can understand why the regime’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei and the regime’s officials are doing everything they can to implement the so-called ‘internet protection plan’,’ because any revelation of the regime’s corruption and crime becomes a direct threat to the regime.
The overwhelming majority of Iranians have experienced this regime with flesh and blood, but it has taken a lot of time and many sacrifices for them to reach such a position.
This has become even more dangerous for the regime as many of its supporters are turning away and questioning the entire system, especially since many people are struggling to survive, and cannot even afford a loaf of bread, while most of the regime’s major officials live in luxury and opulence.
