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Iran’s New Generation Seeks Nothing but Regime Change

Jubin Katiraie
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Iran’s New Generation Seeks Nothing but Regime Change

In a silly and desperate statement, the Iranian regime’s foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian claimed that nothing special is going on in Iran, despite the country being in an uproar following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while in police custody. Amini had been detained for not adhering to the regime’s mandatory hijab rules.

In a recent publication, the NPR media outlet stated, “Amir-Abdollahian acknowledged the tragedy of Amini’s death, but said such incidents happen around the world and downplayed the significance of the nationwide protests.”

In an interview, Amir-Abdollahian said, “I’m assuring them that there is not a big deal going on in Iran. There is not going to be regime change in Iran. Don’t play to the emotions of the Iranian people.”

The question is, what is the reality of the situation and what is the regime facing?

Angry demonstrations are ongoing in dozens of cities across Iran in the most extensive public protests since the 2019 uprising. Iranians have come to the streets to condemn the murder of Mahsa Amini, but they are being faced with violent attacks by the regime’s security forces.

Despite the Internet restrictions in Iran, the conflict between the angry citizens and the security forces has not subsided. People have set police cars on fire in Tehran and chanted slogans against the Iranian regime in dozens of other cities from Qom, Mashhad, and Tabriz, to the south of the country.

In response to these protests, the Iranian regime’s President Ebrahim Raisi has pledged to deal with these demonstrations decisively, and the Ministry of Interior drew the line that it will stand up to the protesters.

Widespread frustrations from the devastated economy to the alienation between Iran’s regime and many of its younger citizens have kept the protests active and ongoing.

This time, the main characters on the ground are not the poor people of the January 2018 protests, nor the middle-class people who mourned because of the Ukrainian plane shot down by the regime’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC).

These unexpected new protesters are Iranian youths, dubbed ‘generation Z’, and they have imposed a serious challenge on the regime. They have decided to take to the streets and revolt, using this as their main tool to implement their policies and demands.

They have completely shocked the regime with their fearlessness and bravery, and caused concern as they do not care about, or believe in, any of the regime’s factions.

The truth is that the ecosystem of generation Z is the media, especially social media. Through this, the youths are well educated, and they have a much brighter perception of freedom and new thoughts. With their minds opened to the wider world, they refuse to believe the regime’s media, whose articles are routinely filled up with the lies and propaganda of the regime’s mullahs, who are stuck in the Middle Ages.

The pain of livelihood issues has not affected only their fathers; They are also mourning their own livelihood conditions too. The future for these youngsters has become unclear to them, and in their view, a home, a good profession, and marriage are difficult prospects to achieve.

They have been influenced by cultural industries. They see no reason to be limited and restricted from things in their lives and have therefore decided to prevent the regime from disconnecting them from the outer world.

The youths of Iran want to be like their peers in other nations to be free. The fact is that with the help of international media, they have learned how they can live differently from what the regime has offered them and their generations before. They are the children of the 21st century, a century of the explosion of information and digital relations.

The truth is that the regime has no examples of life for the new generation to follow. Instead, they are just trying to force them to accept their old and medieval patterns, but this generation is not accepting them. They demand a regime change. They are filled up with the regime’s theocratic rules. Now cries about the overthrow of the regime can be heard all over the country.

The regime is facing a serious transformation, which will definitely lead to its demise. This is because, unlike older generations of Iranians, generation Z has decided to reach its goals by facing the regime on the streets. At this point, further repression of society, at the hands of the regime, will only have negative effects and radicalize the situation.

Iran’s Youths Broke the Spell of Fear

Pooya Stone
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Iran’s Youths Broke the Spell of Fear

One of the main characteristics of the recent protests in Iran is the courage and fearlessness of the people, especially youths, revolting against the regime forces.

The behavior and resistance shown by the women of Iran have been exemplary. They have learned that the only solution to liberate Iran from the regime is by portraying their resistance against the Iranian regime’s rule at any price, by overcoming their fears and taking back their fate, which has been taken away from them for decades.

In many videos published on social media, protesters have been seen attacking the regime’s forces and hunting them, despite being not armed.

Now, the time has come where the regime’s mullahs and repressive forces should be afraid of the consequences of their actions over the past decades. Reaching this point is a qualitative session in the people’s fight against the tyrannical regime, who have ruled Iran by relying on intimidation, repression, terror, and violence.

When fear tactics do not work; the inevitable result is the dismantling of the tyranny and totalitarianism of the mullahs.

Over the past six years, with heavy sacrifice, courage, and non-stop struggle, the Resistance units of the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK) have shown their power and have despaired the regime. Risking their lives, the organization’s members and supporters have paved the way for a new uprising and encouraged the Iranian people to withstand the regime.

We are now witnessing the formation of hundreds, if not thousands, of Resistance Units up and down the country and in each and every city. The people have learned from their past, and by implementing new tactics they are defeating the regime’s forces. The streets and alleys are in their control as they divide and fatigue the regime’s forces.

Learning from these Resistance Units, many people, including youths, are burning down the regime’s propaganda and other symbols installed in the cities across Iran.

On September 24, the state-run Tabnak daily wrote, “There are organized entities that destroy places, burn them and escape, and repeat the same on other places, which shows that they are organized who commit these actions.”

Astonished and scared about the blazing development of the continuing uprising, Mohsen Mahdian, a member of the regime’s revolutionary Guards (IRGC), said, “I want to tell you that the events that happened in these two days are unprecedented. These protests were unprecedented in the last 40 years. Why unprecedented, because there has never been a period of protests in such a way that you can see violence and disturbance from the first hour.”

He added, “The real story is not the hijab, the story is not about the morality police or the death of Mahsa, they are targeting the system. And this is obvious in their slogans if you analyze them logically over the past two days. You will understand that the slogans are clearly saying that our problem is not the issues that have been said, it is the principle of the rule.”

Iran Is on the Brink of a Revolution

Jubin Katiraie
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Iran Is on the Brink of a Revolution

The wall of fear has been broken. In many cities across Iran, women are taking to the streets, leading the protests against the Iranian regime, and fearlessly standing in front of the armed security forces.

The protests began with the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. The regime’s morality police arrested her on September 13 for allegedly improperly wearing a hijab, the mandatory head covering imposed upon Iran’s women. Two hours after her arrest, she was taken to a hospital where, three days later, she succumbed to skull injuries that had been sustained during her detention.

It is not just the violent death of the young woman that has driven women and men to take to the streets to protest. Their anger was also fueled by the authorities’ unabashed attempts to cover up the cause of Mahsa’s death. The moral police claimed that an ‘unfortunate heart failure’ is what took her life.

Thanks to the appeasement policy of the Western powers, who are trying to save the regime from a demise in a new nuclear agreement, very few protests in Iran have made it to international news. In the past year, there are said to have been more than four thousand protests across the country, most of which were only local and were reactions to economic hardships and widespread dissatisfaction.

In their entirety, however, they undermine the legitimacy of the rulers. This also applies to the most recent wave of protests. It is about the core of the mullahs’ regime.

The protests, which have spread like wildfire in many cities across the country over the past week, according to reports, protests have spread to at least 146 cities and all 31 provinces throughout the country. Over 180 people have been killed by the regime’s repressive security forces.

With a mixture of pity for the protesters’ anger and a threat not to take it too far, the regime hoped that the protesters would go home after a few days.

However, with no signs of the uproar easing, the power apparatus is discarding its restraint and starting to threaten the demonstrators. The regime is thus heading for a bloodbath because the predominantly young demonstrators are by no means willing to retreat as the videos from Iran over the past nine days have shown.

Protests that undermine the legitimacy of the regime, now challenging the ruling axis of the mullahs and the Revolutionary Guards, have continued throughout the country.

This wave of protests is growing into a broad social movement that threatens to endanger the very existence of the medieval regime because it is finding support from all social classes in society.

Iran’s young people, want to live in freedom and in a secular country. The unequal showdown has begun, but as history has shown, it seems inevitable that the people will finally win the battle against tyranny, even if they are forced to pay a huge price and make many sacrifices.

Iran’s Regime Claims To Fill Global Energy Gap Despite Crippled Petroleum Sector

Pooya Stone
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Iran’s Regime Claims To Fill Global Energy Gap Despite Crippled Petroleum Sector

In recent weeks, the Iranian regime’s officials have been constantly exaggerating their huge capacity in oil and gas reserves and promising to provide energy to the world. The regime is desperately hoping to compensate for the shortage of gas and oil across the globe, which is due to the war in Ukraine.

According to the state-run Mardom Salari daily, Javad Oji, the regime’s oil minister, spoke during the 32nd meeting of OPEC+ last week, saying that the world needs the increase of the regime’s oil production, and they are ready to guarantee the energy security of the world.

The spokesperson of the regime’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Iran, as one of the main countries owning oil and gas, has the capacity to cover some parts of the world’s oil and gas necessities. Some of the regime’s MPs have also repeated the same claims.

Despite having the second biggest gas resources in the world, the regime has never been able to find a proper place in the global gas market. This has many reasons. The main reason is the widespread corruption in the regime, which has effectively crippled the hydrocarbon industry.

One of the most famous cases of corruption in the country’s oil industry was the embezzlement of $7.4 billion. According to the regime’s state media, most of the defendants were chief executives of the regime’s petrochemical producers and exporters, which are all under the control of the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC).

The country has been struggling for many years to meet even its domestic fuel needs, let alone being able to secure the global energy shortage.

The optimization of gas consumption, both in power plants and factories and in the sources of consumption, was not taken very seriously and this greatly increased gas consumption in the country.

The balance of gas production and consumption in Iran has become almost negative, and last year’s gas cut in industries and factories was not applicable for domestic gas.

Another issue is that due to the decrease in investment in gas fields, because of the sanctions, and the drop in gas pressure in fields that are already developed but require new investment, the regime is actually facing a drop in its gas production.

In order to circumvent the sanctions, the regime has been smuggling oil and gas to neighboring countries for many years, mostly Iraq and Turkey, at a much lower value than the world-determined oil and gas price, which has caused large damage to the country.

False promises and over-optimism are nothing new in the regime, particularly where the regime’s oil industry is concerned. In 2020, the regime’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei and former president Hassan Rohani promised that they would replace the oil revenue with other sources and that the country would be able to withstand the sanctions. In general, the regime’s oil income has been compromising about 80 percent of its budget over the past forty years. Therefore, such a claim without the proper infrastructure is baseless.

According to the IMF, Iran is now producing about 1 million barrels of oil, while the regime’s officials, in the most optimistic view, have claimed that the regime will be able to produce 3.9 million barrels of oil per day. Of this, they would only be able to export 1.8 million barrels and use the rest for domestic consumption.

The amount of oil being churned out through Russian oil production was more than ten million barrels per day, which has decreased slightly during the sanctions against them. Still, Russia remains the largest oil producer in the world, along with the United States and Saudi Arabia. In comparison, Iran’s oil production and export capacity are still far below that of Russia, so there is no way they would be able to fill the gap in the world energy market.

At the same time, the regime is still struggling with an economic crisis. According to the World Bank report of April 2022, “Only a third of the pandemic-period jobs losses have so far been recovered. Oil revenue shortfalls led to a growing budget deficit, adding to inflationary pressures through the government’s deficit financing operations. Iran’s economic outlook is subject to significant risks.”

Also, a paper published by IMF researchers this month stated, “High and volatile inflation has been an endemic economic and social issue in Iran that has contributed to rising poverty and social tensions.”

What Is Happening in Iran?

Jubin Katiraie
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What Is Happening in Iran?

Following the brutal killing of Masha Amini, the Iranian people have once again united to fight and defeat the theocratic mullahs’ regime that is ruling Iran. The protests began to fight against the compulsory hijab rules, but have now extended to tackle the Iranian regime’s many forms of repression against its people, from censorship, discrimination, looting, deception, and abusing religion, to torture, human rights violations, poverty, etc.

All these factors have united the people and showed the world that the Iranian people, from all walks of life, have decided that they wish to overthrow the regime. Iran is in the midst of coordinating a new revolution. Masha Amini, as the people say, has become a symbol and a spark for a new revolution and the people’s final round to defeat the regime.

It has reached a situation where there is no more ambiguity among the people about the rule of mullahs. No faction within the regime can play the role of an ‘opposition’ and so-called ‘reformist’ to deceive the people and divert their real will, which is for a free and democratic country.

Only nationwide solidarity with the common goal of overthrowing the Islamic Republic is what lies ahead. The political challenge of each person and trend is to be in harmony with this common national interest. If not, they are playing in the same court as the regime.

After nine days of protests in over 130 cities across the country, three main factors have been realized:

  1. All the cities are targeting the totality of the regime, which is symbolized by the regime’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei as a common enemy.
  2. Emphasis on national unity and solidarity.
  3. The leadership and decisive roles of women in advancing the movement against the entire sovereignty.

In anger, people are revolting against the armed forces, fighting them with bare hands, and in most cases, the regime’s forces are then forced to retreat. Most of them have lost their motivation to fight the people in fear of the fury brewing within society.

After 41 years, the Iranian people are controlling the streets, and in contrast to the protests in November 2019, the people have the upper hand as they continue attacking the regime’s forces.

Among the cities that have risen so far to fight against the regime are Tehran; Karaj; Mashhad; Qazvin; Zanjan; Shiraz; Rasht; Hamadan; Arak; Kerman; Ilam; Kermanshah; Sanandaj; Qorveh; Tabriz; Urmia; Ardabil; Qom; Kish; Gorgan; Sari; Amol; Sabzevar; Fardis Karaj; Naqadeh; Izeh; Bushehr; Marivan; Bandar Abbas; and Rafsanjan etc.

Hossein Saffar Harandi, the adviser to the head of the regime’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) revealed the extent of the situation in an interview with the state TV channel Ofogh on September 20. He said, “Well, sir, if you want to express your loyalty to a person whom you think is oppressed, express your sympathy, well, this will be not fulfilled with destruction and obscenity and with gestures that attack national interests.”

He added, “But they responded that this is just an excuse, and our main target is the principle of the system, that means we will deal with the entire system.”

The Fars news agency published a fearful statement from the regime’s supporters in the universities and wrote, “We condemn the abuse of recent events by the adversaries, our main red line is the values ​​and ideals of the system.”

It is true, the people are attacking the regime’s red lines, values, and ideals in their slogans. They are doing so to get their message across and reverberate their fury to the so-called leaders of their country.

Among these slogans are:

  • “Death to Khamenei”
  • “Khamenei is a murderer and his rule illegitimate”
  • “Khamenei you murderer, we will bury you”
  • “This year Khamenei will be overthrown”
  • “Khamenei shame on you, let go of the country”
  • “Down with oppressor, whether Shah or (supreme) leader”

Iran Regime’s Ministry of Culture’s Decision To Eliminate Children’s Intellectual Centers

Mehdi Hosseini
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Iran Regime’s Ministry of Culture’s Decision To Eliminate Children’s Intellectual Centers

With the so-called ‘Cultural Revolution’ which took place between 1980 and 1983, the Iranian regime tried to purge the country’s academic world of Western and non-Islamic influences. At that time, the regime used extreme violence to take over the university campuses. Following this decision, many of the country’s prominent academics left the country and the result is that today, we are seeing Iran as one of the countries with the highest brain drain.

On September 13, the state-run daily Salamat news confirmed the regime’s decision to eliminate the academic structure of the country. They wrote, “The issue of the escape of brains and elites has now reached mass migration of doctors and medical staff. According to statistics, 160 cardiologists have migrated in the last year. In the same period, 30,000 medical staff applied for a certificate of good average from the faculties of medical sciences, whose destination was Oman. Also, 16,000 general doctors have emigrated from the country in the last four years.”

It seems that this was not enough for the regime in destroying the most valuable resource of the country, which is its specialists and intellectuals. Recently, the regime’s Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance has decided to hand over the libraries of the intellectual development center for children and teenagers to the country’s public libraries.

This is following the regime’s major plan to inject its intellectual, ideological, and political principles into the content created for children and teenagers.

Publicizing this news, the regime called the libraries of the country ‘public, non-governmental, coordinated with the Islamic principles and influent on the society’ and announced that children and teenagers are at the center of the ‘major policies’ of the regime.

The latest statistics of the reading time per capita for 2020, as announced by the regime’s Ministry of Culture, is two minutes. This indicates that the regime’s plan is nothing more than an injustice to the children of Iran, erasing the opportunity for them to have access to books and libraries.

The regime’s Ministry of Culture suggested this plan according to Article 1 of the law on the establishment and management of public libraries in the country. This dictates that the establishment, construction, equipping, development, management, and supervision of the country’s libraries should be under the supervision of the Public Libraries Institution.

This is despite the libraries of Astan Quds Razavi, the Shrine of Hazrat Masoumeh, the Shrine of Hazrat Abdol Azim, Shahcheragh, National Library, the Ayatollah Marashi Najafi Library, the Islamic Council Library, and other appropriative libraries, being exempt from this law.

The regime has ridiculously claimed that libraries for children are not profitable and are harmful to the country’s economy.

The profitability of a cultural and educational center, such as a library, can never be measured by commercial criteria and perspective. The profitability of libraries and cultural centers, especially for children, in any country will show itself in the promotion of the next generation.

In addition, we should mention that the current high prices of books have brought educational resources out of the reach of most Iranian children. Families even have problems purchasing notebooks for their children, as the price of a single notebook has increased from 60,000 rials to 150,000 rials.

Water Shortage Crisis and the Destruction of Iran’s Water Resources

Hoshang Amiri
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Water Shortage Crisis and the Destruction of Iran’s Water Resources

Iran is currently suffering from a number of dangerous natural disasters. One of the most worrying is the drying up of nearly almost water resources across the country. Many of the regime’s environmental experts have been warning about the critical situation of the Mazandaran Sea (Caspian Sea) which is witnessing a rapid water regression, on average around 20 cm annually.

This situation not only is endangering the indigenous mammal life, but also the businesses and livelihoods of the Iranian people, while many ports are becoming practically useless.

Masoumeh Banihashemi, the director of the Mazandaran Sea National Research and Studies Center stated in June, “As a result of the 170 cm decrease in the water level of the Mazandaran Sea since 1995, there has been a great retreat of the sea and an increase in the coastal area in the northern coasts of Iran.”

She added, “Only from 2014 to 2021, with a decrease of about 50 cm in the water level, about 10 to 100 meters of retreat of the Mazandaran Sea have taken place on different coasts.”

Behzad Layeghi, the Director General of the Atmospheric and Oceanic Science Center in the regime’s Meteorological Organization, said that during the last 26 years, the sea level of Mazandaran has decreased by 1.5 meters.

The decrease in the water level of the Mazandaran Sea further adds to a similar situation at Lake Urmia, which has also dried up, with environmental experts being left disappointed as they try to revive it.

Local reports have also alluded to talk of the drying up of the Sarab Niloufer lake in Kermanshah; while in Sistan and Baluchistan province, concerns about the dryness of the Hamon lake have also increased.

The Anzali, Hawizeh, and Miankaleh wetlands are also not in a good condition. The same conditions govern the permanent and seasonal rivers of Iran.

One of the most affected rivers is the famous Zayandeh Roud River in Isfahan. The expansion of occupations on the river’s coasts, agricultural lands, and villa constructions in the boundary and bed of the Zayandeh River, as well as the drying up of this river, has turned this vital artery of the country into a depot for construction debris and pasture for livestock.

The Zayandeh Roud river revival plan was implemented in 2013 but, due to the regime’s benefits and budget deficit, none of the plans were implemented. The drying up of the Zayandeh Roud is heavily affecting the land subsidence in Isfahan.

It is estimated that when the Zayandeh Roud River was flowing, an average of 130 cubic meters of water entered the Isfahan aquifer, but now due to the lack of river flow, the aquifer is not being fed, while withdrawals from underground water sources in the area are extremely high.

Annual water harvesting in the plains downstream of Zayandehrud, including Lanjanat and Najaf Abad, Segzi, and Isfahan-Barkhar, is around 1.2 billion cubic meters which are moving this region towards water bankruptcy.

Even provinces like Mazandaran are suffering from great water shortages. Officials of the Mazandaran Water Company have said that the level of underground aquifers in this rainy province has decreased, and the lack of proper infrastructures and the high population of the area, as well as unrestrained tourism, have disrupted the water supply of this province.

Dehydration and the lack of water have already taken over most of the provinces of Iran, just months after the residents of Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari, the people of Hamadan, and West Azerbaijan, protested the water scarcity. In Hamedan, according to the reports of the regime’s media, the Ekbatan Dam has dried up and the people of Hamedan must use soft drinks instead of water to quench their thirst.

Drought and the lack of rainfall, apart from directly affecting the water crisis in the country, increase the risk of land subsidence. This issue, along with the lack of planning by the regime’s officials, will cause an even greater water crisis that may cause some regions of the country to become unhabitable in the future.

Economic Freedom Under the Rule of the Mullahs in Iran

Pooya Stone
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Economic Freedom Under the Rule of the Mullahs in Iran

The Fraser institute published its annual report of the index of economic freedom on September 8, which measured the economic freedom of 165 countries around the world in 2020. According to this report, Iran’s economic freedom score has reached its lowest level in the past 20 years.

Iran’s score in this index was 4.96 out of a maximum of 10 points, causing them to fall to the rank of 159 out of 165 countries.

This report has highlighted the slow economic growth of Iran in the last five years. This has led this country to be in the last place among 14 countries in the Middle East and the North Africa region, in terms of economic status, despite having huge oil and gas reserves.

This is in a situation where the average annual economic growth of Iran is 1.2%, the Iranian regime is registered on the FATF’s blacklist, and the country has experienced a sharp drop in health and financial transparency. Economic freedom scores from 2017 to the date of publication of this report indicate a loss of 8.1 points, resulting in the country falling to the bottom of the table of economic freedom in the world.

Each country is given a score from 0 to 10 in each of the 5 sub-indexes. In these five main areas, there are 24 components in total to reach each of these indicators. Many of these components themselves consist of several sub-components. The economic freedom index measures the degree of support for economic freedom by the policies and institutions of each country.

The cornerstones of economic freedom include personal choice, free exchange, freedom to compete and enter markets, and the security of personal assets. This index is designed to measure the compatibility of countries’ institutions and policies with economic freedom.

A country must consider many things and avoid others in order to achieve a higher rank in this index. The criterion of economic freedom can be considered as a measure of the allocation of scarce resources based on personal choice with the coordination of markets.

Governments can increase economic freedom by creating an infrastructure for the voluntary exchange of people, and protecting people and their property from intruders who seek to take what is not theirs by violence, coercion, and fraud.

This is one thing that simply does not exist in Iran, due to the regime’s massive acts of corruption, and an economy controlled by the regime’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), as well as the companies and economic entities under the control of the house of the supreme leader Ali Khamenei.

In this context, the legal system is of particular importance. A country’s legal institutions must protect its citizens, and their property, against the aggressive actions of others and implement contracts uniformly. In the case of the regime, this is an ideal that looks more like a bitter joke, given their long list of various human rights violations, abuses, and discrimination in favor of the ruling people.

Governments should also refrain from actions that restrict personal choice, interfere with voluntary exchanges, and hinder access to markets. Economic freedom is reduced when taxes, government spending, and regulation, replace personal choice, voluntary exchange, and the market, which is exactly what has happened in Iran over the past four decades.

The five areas of economic freedom measured in the Fraser Institute report are government size, the legal system and property rights, strong money, international trade freedom, and regulations.

Regarding the government size in Iran, due to the regime’s corruption and a mafia-led economy, the expenses of the government have increased and reduced and replaced private decisions with government decisions and reduced economic freedom.

Where the legal system is concerned, it is considered that the government of a country must protect and support the people and their private properties. This is one of the most important functions of a democratic government. The index of economic freedom also includes gender equality. The World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2021 was published on March 31, which ranked Iran, under control of the clerical regime, 150 out of 156 countries with an index of 0.582.

Regarding strong money, inflation completely destroys the value of earned wages and savings. Therefore, strong money is necessary to protect property rights. When inflation is high and unstable, it becomes difficult for people to plan and thus effectively use economic freedom.

According to Professor Steve Hanke, Iran’s rial has depreciated against the USD by 57.58% since January 2020, which is why Iran takes 8th place in this week’s Hanke’s Currency Watchlist. The rial is a central bank ‘junk’ currency.

Discussing the disastrous situation of the Iran economy, on June 23 he tweeted, “Iran is embroiled in an economic DISASTER. Today, I accurately measure inflation in Iran at 43.66%/yr. No wonder pensioners are taking to the streets! The RIAL IS TOAST!”

The freedom of international trade, or freedom of exchange (in its broad sense, including buying, selling, contracting, etc.), is essential for economic freedom. This is reduced when the freedom of exchange does not include businesses and people of other countries.

Due to the IRGC’s control over Iran’s imports and exports, customs, airports, and ports, the freedom of exchange for ordinary people and private entities has been diminished.

Governments not only use some tools to limit the right to exchange internationally, but they may also impose heavy regulations that limit the right to exchange, obtain credit and facilities, hire, and work, and freely conduct business. Nearly all economic regulations in Iran are in favor of the regime.

 

Iran’s Regime Continues Its Internet Restriction Project

Hoshang Amiri
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Iran’s Regime Continues Its Internet Restriction Project

This is part of the outlook of a document by the Iranian regime’s Supreme Council of Cyberspace, which has been delivered to its supreme leader Ali Khamenei and approved by him. On August 30, the Supreme Council of Cyberspace finally unveiled the ‘Strategic Document of the Islamic Republic of Iran in Cyberspace in Horizon of 2031’ and notified all the institutions of the regime of its implementation, including the President, Ebrahim Raisi.

The purpose of this document has two goals. First, to get rid of the dangers that virtual space has created for the regime. The second wish of the regime is the formation of the ‘Islamic Republic of the Internet’ to clone a ‘semi-Islamic Republic’ on the internet. With this, the regime will have much freer rein to collect people’s private and public information, and, in case of any protests, it will be easier for them to repress the people.

The ‘consolidation and strengthening of governance, the exercise of sovereignty and national authority over all dimensions and layers of the country’s cyber space’ has been declared as the first and most important goal, which must be implemented in less than eight years. The regime hopes to create a ‘space along the reality’ of the country, which it described as “healthy, useful, safe and relying on the country’s endogenous capacity.”

Another perspective of the regime is ‘to be among the top cyber powers and the first place to provide virtual space services in the region of West and Southwest Asia’ and to end the ‘domination of powerful countries on the global Internet network’.

To achieve this goal, several major actions should be considered.

The first step is to ‘complete and update the national information network with the priority of providing basic services of virtual space such as social messengers, search engine, operating system, and data center services’. This means that the regime would consider creating its own internet, separated from the global internet.

Earlier, Rasoul Jalili, a member of the Supreme Council of Cyber ​​Space, revealed that the regime will issue a ‘passport’ to access the global Internet and create a ‘virtual border around the country’.

He said, “For the people entering the virtual space, there should be rules and laws. Since this is not done through real gates, such as in an airport, the immigration police have no control, therefore different regulations are required for virtual entry. Here, we must understand the problem and formulate a solution for it.”

In the macro measures of this plan, the regime has considered a ‘judiciary for cyberspace.’ Three military and security agencies, i.e., the IRGC, Ministry of Information, and Police, are supposed to form the ‘Cyberspace Police System’ or security monitoring and response network.

The plan has ordered the collection of the private information of the Iranian people. All security institutions, along with the judiciary and several ministries, have been mandated to design a ‘data governance’ system to store, process, exchange, share, exploit, regulate, secure, possess, and classify private and big data.

The regime is considering monitoring the people’s activity, even on the domestically created internet. In other words, each user’s identity and location would be clarified for security and judicial apparatuses before connecting to the domestic or the international Internet.

Another goal that the regime has prepared precise measures for it, is ‘promoting the discourse of the Islamic revolution, expanding the strategic depth of the system and realizing the new Islamic civilization in the virtual space.’

For this purpose, both the Ministry of Labor and the Organization of Administrative and Employment Affairs have been required to employ active hackers, as the ‘labor force of the Islamic Republic in cyberspace’.

On the day the document was unveiled, Hossein Salami, an IRGC commander, announced the existence of 2,000 cyber battalions active on the internet.

The regime’s Radio and Television (IRIB), the Ministry of Information, the Supreme National Security Council, and the General Staff of the Armed Forces each have their own cyber forces.

The decision-making and supervision of the Internet in Iran have been entrusted to the ‘High Commission for the Regulation of the Cyberspace of the Country’.

This commission will consist of representatives of security and intelligence institutions, including the Ministry of Intelligence and the Revolutionary Guards, as well as the police command, the ministry of communication and information technology, culture and Islamic guidance, and relevant deputies.

The regime’s internet experts have said that one of the consequences of the implementation of this plan is the reduction of the internet bandwidth and speed, and the loss of 9 million jobs. With this plan, it has been considered that the ratio of 70 to 30 internet traffic should be observed. As a result, the regime’s Ministry of Communications must spend 70% of the traffic on the domestic network, leaving the remainder for the foreign internet.

Iran’s Human Development Index Dropped Sharply

Pooya Stone
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Iran’s Human Development Index Dropped Sharply

One of the most common questions asked in primary schools by teachers all over the world is, “wealth or science? Which one is better?”

By proposing this topic, a class is divided into two groups, each of which discusses the advantages and disadvantages of these two options.

After four decades of the Iranian regime’s rule over Iran, however, this question has lost its color, because science and education have become a class-divided issue in Iran.

Those who can afford education are able to realize their dreams, and those who cannot, find their destiny working as waste collectors, porters, street vendors, etc.

Today, Iran has hundreds of thousands of children who do not have the chance to choose between science and wealth, and instead are forced to yield to the most difficult, exhausting, and corrupt works to make minimum ends meet for survival.

Zahedan is one of the most deprived areas in the country. After school, boys are forced to work as porters at the border of Pakistan, while the girls mostly work at tailor shops or provide water from pits for a minimum wage, because most of the settlements lack piped water.

On January 23, the state-run news agency ILNA quoted Mohammad Riggi, a school director, in their article, writing, “Most of the children from poor families go to the border and do things whatever they can do on the or work as porters. When female students reach the sixth grade, they cannot continue studying because secondary school is not provided for them here.”

Contrary to the regime’s constitution, education is no longer free. With the establishment of non-governmental schools of various types, the rich, mostly the regime’s officials and supporters, have access to extraordinary facilities while public schools struggle with poverty and deprivation.

In regards to the critical situation that has arisen from this decision, even the regime’s officials are forced to regret what they have done to the country’s future.

On December 10, 2019, the state-run news agency Tasnim wrote, “The deputy of elementary education of the Ministry of Education says, I wish, we never started the path towards non-governmental education, but now by separating students in different schools, we have implemented the ‘Sassanian class system’ in a different way.”

This has created huge discrimination between the children. Tasnim added, “In feudalism systems, we witnessed class divisions, but when children went to school, the style of education had a clear message, that they are all equal.”

In the whole of Iran, there are more than 55,000 government primary schools and 100,000 non-government schools. These are not only separated in terms of social class but students are also separated based on intelligence.

Separation based on people’s intelligence is more dangerous than class separation. Children can accept that they are born into a low-income family, but when they are divided in terms of intelligence, this destroys their self-confidence.

On August 23, 2021, the state-run daily ICNA quoted an educational expert and wrote, “It is unfortunate that we have done this with 85% of the country’s student population who attend public schools, and we only pay attention to 15% of the population with intelligence and family financial capabilities.”

The university entry exam statistics of 2022 reveal this catastrophe. The share of the top 40 ranked schools was as follows:

  • Schools of brilliant talents: 72.5 percent.
  • Special non-profit schools: 22.5 percent.
  • State talent schools: 2.5 percent.
  • Public schools: 2.5 percent.

72.5 percent of the top ranks are from the so-called ‘Sampad’ schools, while the share of Sistan and Baluchistan schools in the top ranks of the entrance exam is 0.16 percent.

It is not without reason that the human development index of Iran is dropping annually. In 2021, this index decreased for the fourth consecutive year and approached the level reached back in 2014.

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