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Mohsen Rezaei Appointed As Raisi’s Vice President for Economic Affairs

Mehdi Hosseini
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Mohsen Rezaei Appointed As Raisi’s Vice President for Economic Affairs

Ebrahim Raisi, the Iranian regime’s new president has appointed Mohsen Rezaei as the vice president for Economic Affairs, as well as the roles of secretary of the Supreme Council of Economic Coordination, and secretary of the administration’s Economic Headquarters.

Before becoming Raisi’s vice-president, Rezaei served as a member and secretary of the Expediency Discernment Council since 1997. He has run for president several times but has never been selected by the regime’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

According to statements that Rezaei has made previously in regards to economic affairs, it suggests that his new role will involve promoting the regime’s terrorist activities. He has already put forward his questionable place to improve Iran’s dying economy declaring that the value of Iran’s currency, albeit damaged by inflation, is equal to the values of the dollar and the euro.

Mohsen Rezaei was born Sabzevar Rezaei Mir Ghaed on September 1, 1954 in the city of Masjed Soleiman. During his studies in Tehran in the mid-1970s, Rezaei made connections with the religious group, Mansourun, and with some of their members, went on to form the Mojahedin Organization of the Islamic Revolution after the 1979 Revolution.

Rezaei was also a key element in the repression of the ethnic minorities, particularly Kurds, at the beginning of the revolution since he was one of the top IRGC commanders. Afterward, he and his ilk were active in suppressing and arresting dissidents, mainly MEK supporters.

Soon after, he became a commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Intelligence and was appointed as the commander-in-chief in the first months of the Iran-Iraq war, a role which he served in from 1981 to 1997. During this time, tens of thousands of children were used as “one-time soldiers” to sweep Iraqi minefields, while the Iranian regime prolonged the war and launched several offensives, known as Operation Karbala. These ultimately failed and resulted in the deaths of thousands of Iranian citizens.

The regime’s official statistics identified 10,000 Iranians as killed or missing in Operation Karbala-4 and a further 7,000 in Karbala-5. Another 26,000 were listed as injured in those two operations.

Rezaei is also responsible for the crimes committed in ward 209 of Evin Prison due to his role in the IRGC. The notorious ward was used to torture dissidents, as well as members and supporters of the MEK.

A further incident from Rezaei’s warpath saw his involvement in a bombing in Argentina in 1994. On July 18, 1994, a truck bomb outside a Jewish center in Buenos Aires killed 85 people and injured a further 200. The following month, it was announced that the bombing had been planned by the IRGC in Tehran. A lawsuit against the perpetrators of the attack was filed in 2006, including Rezaei, and as a result, they were placed on Interpol’s wanted list.

In a reaction, Argentina’s government condemned the appointment of a second official in new Iran President Ebrahim Raisi’s administration wanted by Interpol in relation to the 1994 bombing of the AMIA Jewish community center in Buenos Aires.

Argentina’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement expressing “strongest condemnation” of the approval of former IRGC leader Mohsen Rezaei as Iran’s vice-president for economic affairs.

Despite having little to no experience in managing the economy, Rezaei’s new role as the Vice President for Economic Affairs has confused many people. He is also said to be heading the Supreme Council of Economic Coordination, known as the ‘Economic War Room’, tasked with tackling Iran’s economic crisis.

The Iranian economic crises are due to the regime’s corruption and financing of terrorism. Thus, the Raisi government and its officials like Rezaei are unable to resolve economic crises, and will inevitably resort to exerting more pressure on the Iranian people while further amplifying state corruption.

Iran: 400,000 Deaths and 100,000 Nurses Infected

Sia Rajabi
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Iran: 400,000 Deaths and 100,000 Nurses Infected

Since March 2020, when the COVID-19 vaccine was first distributed around the world, everything has been ready to push back the virus including in Iran, but the regime’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei issued a government order banning the purchase of foreign vaccines and insulting and betraying the Iranian people.

Since then, the lives of millions of Iranians have become a toy of Khamenei’s stubbornness as the first culprit of the rising number of deaths. Now because of such a decision, Khamenei has become a target of the people.

The rising number of deaths left no doubt that Khamenei is using the coronavirus as a weapon against the people. There is no difference between this strategy and the massacre of the political prisoners in 1988 both are implemented to secure the existence of this regime. It has even been decided that schools should be opened at the height of this massacre.

On this issue of August 29, 2021, the state-run daily Hamdeli in an article entitled ‘Reopening schools, a tsunami of death’ wrote: “Alireza Raisi, spokesman for the National Headquarters against Coronavirus, said that from September 23, some 30 to 40 percent of schools and from 23 October, all schools will be reopened in person.”

The decision to reopen schools comes as the paper quotes health experts as saying: “There will be 4-digit coronavirus deaths in the future, and in these supercritical conditions, the promise to reopen schools will only play with students’ lives and cause educational chaos.”

And there is no doubt that the main person behind this massacre is Khamenei, as one of the regime’s news agencies the SNN (Student News Network, Daneshjoo) angry about the People’s Mojahedin of Iran (PMOI/MEK) campaign to present Khamenei as the main culprit complained and, in an article, entitled, “Vaccination and enemy’s dangerous advantage taking” wrote:

“The coronavirus super-challenge has now entered the security sphere for the system. Cause, it is a fierce psychological war waged by the Mojahedin in this regard. They indoctrinate that all countries are vaccinating, only Iran does not want to vaccinate people because of the regime’s ‘deliberate policy.’

“The Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) does not suffice to this propaganda, and with all its massive propaganda apparatus, with its satellite network, with its various sites and with its virtual army, it instills in the people and society that the main culprit for the lack of vaccines is Khamenei.

“The Mojahedin even raise the issue of riot and call the coronavirus an accomplice of the regime to deal with the riots. Massoud Rajavi (leader of the MEK) also sends a message saying that Khamenei sees the coronavirus as a blessing and opportunity with a huge human loss to protect (the system) from danger (riot).

“This advantage taking has now promoted the dangerous belief in society that Khamenei is guilty of lack of vaccines. The outcome of this situation is the next step of Massoud Rajavi, who invites people to revolt and, unfortunately, finds a lot of echoes in society.

“The Mojahedin-e Khalq, especially Rajavi who is the worst enemy of the system, does not hesitate to take any opportunity to attack Khamenei’s system and person.” (State-run news agency SNN, August 30, 2021)

The result of such a policy is not only the death of hundreds of thousands of people but it will have long psychological, social, and economic effects on society. One of these effects is the collapse of the country’s healthcare system.

The state-run news agency Fars on August 31, 2021, wrote: “According to the current situation in which we are located, the number of patients and deaths due to the coronavirus delta strain has increased and medical staff and nurses are serving patients for 24 hours and physically nurses are exhausted and mentally threaten their depression.

“Since the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak, 100,000 nurses have been infected in the whole country, of which 30,000 are from Tehran. Also, 92 nurses have died of coronavirus since the beginning of the outbreak.”

Ebrahim Raisi’s Visit to Khuzestan Raises Suspicions

Jubin Katiraie
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Ebrahim Raisi’s Visit to Khuzestan Raises Suspicions

“For now, the head of state prefers to say only that we can solve problems and go on a provincial trip and visit. The fact is that these visits only prove to everyone that the head of state does not know the real situation in the country.” (Hamdeli, September 1, 2021)

The Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi flew across Iran last Friday to visit the city of Ahvaz in Khuzestan province, sparking suspicions of a PR stunt.

During his campaign in the run-up to the presidential elections in June, Raisi was insistent in getting the Iranian people on his side, mostly in a bid to curtail revolts. Since 2017, there have been a large number of nationwide uprisings, and the regime is constantly in fear of future popular revolts. As a result, phrases such as ‘reaching out to people’, ‘working with people’ and ‘talking to people’ were consistent features in Raisi’s campaign speeches.

Iranians, as well as political observers, still remember how Hashemi Rafsanjani, the former president after Khomeini’s death, called himself ‘the Builder-in-Chief’, trying to pose as the man-to-go for building up a nation that had lost several hundred thousand lives and more than 1 trillion in treasure to war with Iraq.

Looking at Raisi’s predecessors, they’ve all had their attempts at trying to manipulate Iranian citizens. Mohammad Khatami, who replaced Rafsanjani, was identified as ‘a reformist’ who tried his best to stifle the pleas for social and political freedom in Iran, while Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who followed him, painted himself as ‘the man of the people’. Even Hassan Rouhani’s attempts to connect with society seemed to hit a nerve. As for Ebrahim Raisi himself, barely anyone respects him anymore.

By choosing the Khuzestan province, Raisi showed where the regime fears most that an uprising could be imminent.

July of this year saw demonstrations taking place in cities across Khuzestan with protesters, who were extremely fed up with the power outages and water shortages, leading chants of ‘Death to Khamenei’. Protesters clashed with security forces at many of those protests, which resulted in the deaths of 12 people, hundreds injured, and many others being arrested and sent to the regime’s prisons.

Reacting to Ebrahim Raisi’s visit to Khuzestan, a local member in the parliament called the trip “a show” and said that “these short, one-day trips will not solve Khuzestan’s problems” and called on the government to stop the practice.

In a post on the state-run website, Aftab News, there was a quote from MP Majid Naserinejad who said, “Problems such as sewage issues, unemployment, drought, the destruction of palm trees, etc. are problems which need constant attention and major decisions.”

Although not officially confirmed, reactions on social media indicated concerns about increasing pressure on the people of the province and the suppression of popular protests following the appointment.

Raisi, on his travels around the province, vowed that he would solve the unemployment problem that residents of Khuzestan are facing by expanding industries and agriculture opportunities. Upon leaving Khuzestan after his visit, he headed back to Tehran to take part in press activities, leaving behind the province that has been ravaged by droughts and poverty.

He didn’t explain why these problems exist and what he’d done through four decades of his tenure in the highest office of the country’s judicial system. Nor did he explain what his true plans are for the province. But if history is any guide, the future will prove that all his staging has been in vain.

Iran and Four Dimensions of Poverty

Pooya Stone
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Iran and Four Dimensions of Poverty

Institutional looting and corruption and the dominance of the Iranian government institutions over the country’s economy, as the regime’s parliament speaker Mohamad Bagher Ghalibaf has acknowledged, has led to prosperity for four percent of the country’s population and the expansion of poverty among the rest.

The result as expected is the growing class gap in Iran, as these days the state-run media have confessed. At the head of these marauding institutions are the institutions affiliated with the supreme leader Ali Khamenei’s office, which have monopolized a large part of the country’s economy and caused a class divide in the country.

Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejei, head of the judiciary, admitted this without naming the institutions and monopolies that created a class divide in the country: “Some monopolies in the country have created a class divide’ (Mehr News Agency, July 31, 2021).

“The significant class gap in Iran is the monthly income of the tenth decile in the city of more than 70 million, and the income of the first decile in the village is only 500,000 Tomans per month,” the Khabar Fori Telegram Channel reported.

The income status of the poorest segments of society, especially the incomes of the lower strata in the villages, is so low that the Farhikhtegan newspaper wrote about it on August 28, 2021:

“The study of expenditure and income of households in the country shows that such similar cases have only been observed in critical years such as war and famine in the last 100 years. The situation is similar for rural households, and the cost-to-income ratio in the country’s villages has risen from 1.2 in 2010 to 0.8 in 2019, indicating a sharp drop in consumption. Studies of inequality indicators indicate deepening class differences. The main cause of income inequality for Iran’s economy exists in the same structural problems of the Iranian economy.”

What this means is that people have reached the lowest point of the poverty line, the hunger line, and the survival line, which means that most people in society have reached a point where they are struggling for their survival. Currently, more than 60 percent of Iranians are on the hunger line and survival line.

In the face of rising inflation, unemployment, inequality, reduced per capita income and purchasing power of the people, and ultimately the shrinking livelihood basket, there is a highly affluent group dependent on the regime that has spent an average of 230,000 billion tomans to buy villas, a wealthy class that has spent $2.9 billion on luxury car imports over three years.

The average cost of importing a foreign car is equal to the annual living costs of 33,000 people in the outskirts of the cities.

The effects of increasing the class gap and widespread poverty in society are not only obvious in the economic context but also its destructive effects can be felt in wider areas.

“Today, poverty has a broader meaning of material poverty, including lack of access to safe water, nutrition, health services, education, clothing, and shelter, living standards, social insurance, and employment. Poverty can be defined in at least four dimensions: lack of economic, cultural, social and symbolic capital.” (Etemad daily, August 29, 2021)

The trend of ‘social damages,’ crises such as addiction, marginalization, theft, divorce, suicide, street violence, and assault, in the country is constantly increasing and the age of people involved in these crises is decreasing compared to past years. Suicide and domestic violence statistics have also grown, according to forensic statistics.

Iranian Regime Behind Iran’s Electricity Shortage Problems

Hoshang Amiri
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Iranian Regime Behind Iran’s Electricity Shortage Problems

Iran is continuing to experience blackouts and power outages across the national grid. Demonstrations over the outage in early July shocked the Iranian regime, with protesters in Tehran blaming the regime for the issues while chanting ‘Death to Khamenei’.

The outgoing Minister of Energy Ardakanian of Hassan Rouhani’s government said that the power outage was due to the premature warming of the air and the decrease in rainfall.

Mohammad Hassan Motavilizadeh, CEO of Tavanir, blamed the electricity shortages on a reduction in the volume of water in dam reservoirs which is affecting the production of hydropower. Another excuse, this time from the former Minister of energy, lay the blame on the extraction of cryptocurrency (bitcoin) for wasting electricity.

While cunningly apologizing to the people for the shortage, the mullahs’ now outgoing president Hassan Rouhani at the same time, mockingly stated that “China and America” have electricity problems too.

Figures suggest that the peak power consumption in Iran sits around 55 gigawatts (GW), while electricity generation statistics from the Ministry of Energy reveal that country’s capacity is over 85 GW. According to these numbers, shortages should not exist.

The first lie of the clerical regime is the actual production capacity, which in practice is a maximum of about 60 gigawatts.

Due to erosion and technical defects in the systems at thermal power plants, the generators often only run at partial production capacity, even though the plants supply up to 80% of the country’s electricity.

The mullahs’ second lie is about the consumption increase due to the seasonal heat. According to the outgoing Minister of Energy, the rise in temperature in May was 3 degrees compared to the previous year’s average.

Reports from the CEO of Ahwaz Power Distribution have said that even one degree of an increase in temperature will create an additional 300 megawatts (MW) of extra load during the production peak. By this logic, an increase of three degrees in the temperature would create less than one GW of overload.

The mullahs’ third lie is the high average household consumption. According to global statistics, Iran has an average per capita global consumption (about 3 kWh), which is lower than similar consumption in similar countries.

In a comparison of the annual electricity consumption across all sectors of industry in Iran, the share of household consumption sits at the lowest level, behind all the industry sectors.

The next lie is the outsized role of lack of rainfall. The amount of hydroelectric power generation is between 10 and 12 gigawatts, and the largest figure given by the regime, which is also likely to be exaggerated, is 14.5 gigawatts.

The lack of rain will supposedly cause a 40% drop in electricity production according to the government, but with these figures, the actual amount of deducted power is less than 6 GW, about one-tenth of the total output of electricity of the whole of Iran.

The country’s electricity transmission and distribution network are worn out due to lack of investment, so the rate of energy loss reaches an incredible 12%. In other words, about 10 gigawatts of the country’s electricity production is wasted simply due to the freak network condition.

The Purpose of the Baghdad Summit and Its Impact on the Iranian Government

Shahin Mahmoudi
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The Purpose of the Baghdad Summit and Its Impact on the Iranian Government

The Baghdad Summit was held in the Iraqi capital on August 28, 2021, with the presence of the leaders and senior officials of the neighboring countries of Baghdad. Apart from the apparent reasons given for holding the summit, what is the nature and purpose of this summit?

The Middle East is brim with many crises and turbulences. Observers say that there are just a few moments and days that this crisis-prone region is not burning in the flames of wars, which is flaring from a corner of this region, no conflict arises between the two countries, and no serious challenges are posed to the region, governments, and people of the Middle East.

Occasionally there are meetings in this region between the countries who are trying to decrease their disagreements, while not every time the outcome is not zero but is not always perfect and the conflicts continue.

The issue of cooperation and dialogue between Saudi Arabia and the Iranian government has sometimes led Iraq, which is self the victim of the Iranian government’s intervention in the country, to host the two countries, east and south to its borders, and try out its chances for an agreement that could bring relative stability to Iraq which is damaged by the conflicts mainly executed by Iran’s regime.

Before the start of the Vienna talks on the Iranian government’s nuclear program, French president Emmanuel Macron said any new negotiations about the Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA) should include Saudi Arabia and other countries of the region.

“Saudi Arabia and its ally the United Arab Emirates have said that Gulf Arab states should be involved in any talks this time which they say should also address Iran’s ballistic missile program and its support for proxies around the Middle East.” (Reuters, January 29, 2021)

The Iranian government, in the name of the so-called Iraqi Initiative, met with Saudi Arabia in Baghdad to prevent Arab countries, from interfering in the Vienna talks and that the regime’s regional inference should not be included in new nuclear negotiations. This could and be a heavy impact on the Iranian government, as it is still strongly opposing it.

Aligned with the Vienna talks some secret and sometimes official meetings were held between Iran and Saudi Arabia without any specified result.

The Iranian government thought to have reached its desired goal, which was keeping the Arab countries away from the Vienna talks, did not show any serious desire to continue the talks which finally came to a standstill on June 20, which is continuing until now.

Now with the host of the Iraqi government and Iranian-Saudi talks have started again. The two countries met in Baghdad on August 28, along with other Iraqi neighbors, except Syria.

The Saudi Foreign Ministry and its Iranian counterpart also attended the Baghdad summit.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdullahian, who attended the Baghdad meeting on behalf of the Iranian government, said the Iranian government is ready to develop bilateral and regional cooperation with Saudi Arabia.

It is worth mentioning that the Iraqi Foreign Minister had previously invited Ibrahim Raisi to attend the Baghdad Summit, but in the end, the Iranian Foreign Minister left for the Baghdad Summit.

Earlier, Iraqi officials said one of the main goals of the Baghdad summit was to improve relations between Tehran and Riyadh as regional rivals. Now, why Baghdad seeks to improve relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran is a question that needs to be considered.

There is no doubt that after the fall of the former Iraqi government, the Iranian regime has had very extensive interventions in Iraq, which have also spread to other countries such as Yemen, Lebanon, Syria, etc., endangering the interests of Saudi Arabia and the stability of all the countries in the Middle East.

Something that the regime is not paying its price but the people of Iran and the people of other countries.  So, countries like Iraq are looking for a way to end these proxy wars between Saudi Arabia and Tehran.

Saudi Arabia and the Iranian government have not had diplomatic relations for six years after the attack on the Saudi embassy and consulate in Tehran and Mashhad and have been waging a proxy war in Yemen.

Some time ago, it was thought that with the continuation of negotiations between Saudi Arabia and Tehran, representatives from Saudi Arabia would go to Tehran for the inauguration of the regime’s new president Ebrahim Raisi, but this does not happen, it seems that the level of talks and cooperation is still not developed and instable.

But another hidden goal of the Iranian government to attend the Baghdad summit can be considered the country’s concern about the Abraham Accord between Israel and Arab nations, which has caused concern to the Iranian government in recent years.

Certainly, Iran’s regional dialogues with Arab countries conflict with the Abraham Accord, and the strengthening of one of the two negotiations inherently undermines the other. The Iranian government’s participation in the Baghdad Summit can also be examined from this perspective.

Severe Shortage of COVID Medicine Is a Threat to Life for Iranians

Sia Rajabi
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Severe Shortage of COVID Medicine Is a Threat to Life for Iranians

Faces a rising number of Covid-19 cases and an overwhelming rate of deaths due to the pandemic, the Iranian regime continues to ban vaccine imports and hoard medicines meant to treat those afflicted.

Government officials have blamed medicine shortages on overcrowded pharmacies. The reality, however, is that hoarding by the drug mafia in Iran has prevented patients from accessing necessary medications.

According to a report from the IRNA news agency from August 15, at least 18 tons of the medication used to treat Covid-19 patients are awaiting clearance at the airport. The report, states that “more than four tons of raw materials for Favipiravir, 800 kilograms of Betadex raw materials and more than 13 tons of Remdesivir have been stored in the relevant cold storages.”

However, custom statistics have revealed that a shipment of 200,000 packages of 100mg syringes of Remdesivir remains stuck at customs, waiting for a decision from the Health Ministry as to when and where they’ll be distributed.

Also, in ports and docks, medicine is stored in large quantities. However, they become scarce and expensive in the market. One of the rare and expensive medicines is now the ones needed to treat black fungus caused by covid.

Jamejam online reported that Iran is facing a serious shortage of fungal infection medication, Amphotericin B. Due to an increase in cases of black fungus caused by Covid-19, demand for the drug in the Iranian market has risen dramatically.

While the drugs being used to treat covid patients are helping, the medication and corticosteroids they are being given have been found to have more side effects than Covid-19 itself. The head of Yas Hospital in Tehran said, “More than half of the deaths of covid patients are due to the side effects of the drugs that are prescribed.”

Mardomsalari, a state-run daily, wrote in their publication that the regime attempted to procure 60 million Sputnik vaccine doses. In the end, only 900,000 doses were imported into Iran, all of which were only given to ‘certain sections of the society.

From the very beginning of this pandemic, this entity opposed the import of vaccines and regularly promised to produce millions of doses of indigenous vaccines. It is now clear that these domestic vaccines are not very effective, and at the same time, the regime is plundering the Iranian people by storing drugs in customs and leaking them to the black market.

The Executive Headquarters of Khomeini’s Order is said to be Iran’s largest economic cartel. With the regime’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei in control, and the regime’s First Vice President, Mohammad Mokhber supervising, the Order controls the production and import of pharmaceuticals.

Up to 96 percent of Iranians live below the poverty line and struggle daily to make ends meet. For these people, purchasing medicine has become impossible, leaving millions of Iranians fighting to survive during this terrible pandemic.

The people blame the regime and Khamenei for the current extremely critical situation, an issue that has recently prompted government officials to justify Khamenei’s orders to distance him from public anger and hatred.

To Expand Repression, Iran’s Judiciary Takes Control of the Internet

Pooya Stone
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To Expand Repression, Iran’s Judiciary Takes Control of the Internet

In December 2020, when Iranian society was struggling with small and big problems from the coronavirus to the lack of water and power outages, in hidden and a silent atmosphere a plan called the ‘Requirement to publish data and information plan’ was presented to the parliament, and until a few days ago no one was aware of the existence of such a plan.

Then suddenly everyone began to speak about it, and many lawyers in Iran called it a plan worse than the plan ‘to protect the rights of users in cyberspace.’

Once this plan is finalized and approved, the government will own information about all people’s lives and businesses, and it seems that the scars of this plan will go deeper into the body of society than the wounds of the ‘protection of the users’ rights in the cyberspace.

According to the written law of this regime who is one of the leading governments in the suppression of freedom of speech and information access, everyone has the right to access public information unless prohibited by law, while it is stated in this plan put on the agenda of MPs that the specialized committees under the Supreme Council for the Supervision of the dissemination of Information will be formed to check the availability of public data and information published by individuals.

It is also prohibited to upload data and information to systems or websites that have not received permission from the Council after the finalization and notification of this plan.

One of the issues that seem to have difficulty publishing and free access to information if this plan comes into force is the lack of direct reference to everyone’s right to access information. The proposed plan further emphasized the bans.

On the other hand, it seems that with the approval of this plan, the authority to disseminate information and data is out of the hands of the government and the Commission for the Publication and Open Access to Information, which is under the supervision of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance and is provided to the Supreme Council for monitoring the dissemination of information under the judiciary, and even government agencies must ask for permission from this council that is under the judiciary to publish their information.

According to the ‘Requirement to Publish Data and Information’ plan, a council should be formed to monitor the dissemination of information, supervise the implementation of laws relating to transparency, protect the rights of communication and information privacy, monitor the rules governing the sovereign secrets of the Supreme Council for The Monitoring of The Dissemination of Information, within one month of the notification of this law in the Judiciary.

The 20-member council is headed by the Head of the Judiciary and attended by the First Vice President, the Minister of Information, the Minister of Communications, the Chief of The General Staff of the Armed Forces, the Head of the Inspector General’s Office, the Head of the National Cyberspace Center, three expert judges familiar with the field of information dissemination and data protection (for three years), five members of parliament as observers without the right to vote, three experts and reliable experts active in the field Dissemination of information (selected by the Supreme Council of Cyberspace), an expert and activist in the field of information dissemination is chosen by the Expediency Council and one of the experts active in the field of information dissemination is chosen by the Supreme Court of Calculation.

According to the projections made by the Council, it must set standards for the production, processing, operation, publication, transmission, disclosure, and protection of data and information. The Council is also responsible for determining the criteria and instances of sovereign secrets, job secrets, and communication and information privacy.

The Council shall provide information related to crimes related to violations of the communication and information privacy of individuals and the expose of government secrets and occupational secrets of individuals to security and judicial institutions and authorities.

At the end of this plan, the Council has been obliged, from the date of notification of this law, in cooperation with the Ministry of Communications and relevant agencies, to prepare the criteria for the creation, administration, and updating of the websites and information bases of the persons concerned in terms of content, ease and access of users, reliable and understandable to the public, and after approval in the Board of Ministers for implementation.

It is important to note that from the date of entry into force of this plan, the Law on the Publication and Open Access to Information approved in 2008 will be abolished, which means that Iran’s parliament, by submitting this plan, seeks to obsolete the law on the publication and free access to information, and take the authority to disseminate information and data from the government and give it over to the judiciary.

Each government launches a system to facilitate its affairs, as well as to review and comment on various matters, to maintain the public safety of the community. Therefore, an organization must have access to public information and protect it from abuse.

But this law will allow abuse of the people’s privacy, if such a thing even exists in Iran, because the government could spy on every element of the people’s lives, according to social rights activists.

Iran’s Government in the Name of a Free Market Plunders the People

Jubin Katiraie
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Iran’s Government in the Name of a Free Market Plunders the People

The growth of the Iranian Stock Exchange index led to about two million units in August 2020 so that many people went to invest in the stock exchange.

Returns and profits in the stock market had snatched the competition from other less risky areas of investment, including housing, coins, and dollars, and many people poured their money into the capital market. However, after a short time, Iran witnessed a fall in the stock market – an earlier issue that was predicted by many of the government’s economists, who described it as a fast-blowing bubble that would explode very soon.

There is a ratio in the economy that shows how much the country’s financing structure has become a capital-driven market. This ratio is higher in Iran than in the world. This ratio is nearly 80 percent in Iran.

While the ratio of the role of capital market in financing structure in countries such as Turkey and China is 30 percent and Germany, and the United Kingdom is about 40 percent.

This ratio is not normal in Iran at all, and the main cause is the bubble that has been created in the Iranian stock exchange.

Iranian politicians have turned the use of stock exchanges to finance and maintain the stock exchange bubble into a looting ideology and are even promoting it.

Their excuses for this harmful propaganda to the country’s economy are the small shareholders. Interestingly, the misery, poverty, and death of many people due to coronavirus and many other issues of the people are not very important, but they are still allergic to the situation of small shareholders.

The false boom in the stock market and the preservation of the bubble in different ways is a policy that has been implemented over the years under the pretext of micro-shareholders, but to gain access to the people’s dollars.

The fact that the financial structure of the country depends so much on the capital market has many consequences. One of the consequences is that the country’s public resources are not available to small and medium-sized enterprises and the public.

Iran’s Stock Exchange is practically an archipelago of private but government-controlled enterprises whose managers are non-governmental enterprises and entities. These entities are plundering the people and the economy in the name of the free market, so the financial resources of the capital market are practically in the hands of stock exchange firms that are private but government-controlled.

Regarding the rise of the price of the dollar, which in the last 10-12 years has increased about 25-times, and the effects of these entities on the dollar price, it should be said that for large firms to be able to make big profits on the stock exchange, these stock exchanges must keep the dollar price high, as well as the inflation of the commodities, should hold high so that this ailing and crisis-ridden economy can survive.

Last year, the government’s budget deficit was 250 trillion tomans. In the same period, 20 stock exchanges have had a net profit of 250 trillion tomans.

All their profits have been practically from rent-seeking sources, oil, and gas energy. If this rent is cut, these firms will also lose. The profit growth comes as the taxes paid by these firms in previous years were less than 6 percent. But the operating income of these 20 enterprises was higher than the government budget.

These so-called private but government-controlled enterprises are benefiting from various government concessions and economic and political rents and on other the side, they are allowed to sell their products at any desired price. Therefore, this trend is not competitive for real private and small entities.

People suffered great losses in these stock exchange conditions, and the huge losses that were inflicted on people because of this ailing economy are much more than the money those small shareholders lost on the stock exchange.

It should be noted that people’s wages have doubled in the last three years, but people’s purchasing power has decreased to a fifth. People can no longer afford to buy a home, while property owners’ assets have increased between 8 to 10 times.

No one in the government mentions these losses caused by the increase in the role of the capital market in the financing structure of the country’s economy and the power of rent-seeking private government-controlled enterprises. This is a fact about the corruption from which most of the officials benefit.

Big Hurdles on the Path of the New Iranian Government

Mehdi Hosseini
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Big Hurdles on the Path of the New Iranian Government

Iran’s government is making its lasts steps, therefore is showing its concern and fear about many issues which each of them are becoming a painful challenge without having any solution for it.

Two of these subjects which are related to its foreign policy but have a serious impact on the regime’s internal policy are its approach to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) and the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

“All our foreign policy issues are directly or indirectly involved in foreign policy issues. The withdrawal of the United States from the JCPOA and the cessation of the fulfillment of its obligations is a big stone in front of us that has stopped our movement, and as long as we do not remove this stone from the path, it will be very difficult for us to continue.”

“Western governments, which claim to resolve the JCPOA immediately, they do not hate it because of their hostility that we remain these subjects unresolved, as all of our movements in the development of economic relations, economic diplomacy, the development of relations even with our neighbors and our strong presence in international forums are tied to this problem.” (Khabar Online, August 26, 2021)

Despite all the regime’s boasts having the upper hand, these phrases show that the regime’s foreign policy and the connected interior policy are stuck. So that even for simple trade and trade relations with neighboring countries, despite many countries are showing their goodwill, and serious determination to engage, but the regime still faces serious problems, at least the problem is that they say if our countries decide to engage, they fear that because of cooperating with the regime they get caught up in sanctions.

Therefore, many of the regime’s officials say that the priority of the new government will be to solve the JCPOA case. In addition to the issue of the JCPOA, the issue of removing Iran from the list of high-risk countries of the FATF is the second priority, if not a parallel priority. The issue of passing FATF-related laws has also deprived the regime of large-scale financial transactions and international banking transactions.

Even if the regime’s assets are released by resolving the implementation of western parties’ obligations in the JCPOA and the regime is going to use these assets to invest domestically, it will definitely need healthy ways to bank and credit exchanges, one of which is membership in FATF, that has created a big headache, because the regime must money laundering and its financial support of terror proxy groups in the Middle East.

Its third problem is losing its dominance in the Middle East which is isolating the regime.

“In the next priority, we can also discuss improving relations with our neighbors, and by fueling Iran fear, our enemies have been able to move away from many potentially friendly and partner countries from Iran to regulate their relationship with Israel. We must take Iran-fearing weapons from the enemies of Iran and remind our neighbors of the good relations that have always been our country’s foreign policy plan and practically take action to solve the problems between us.” (Khabar Online, August 26, 2021)

Changing the entire government and expelling all the members of the so-called reformist faction from the government will not help and solve any of the regime’s problems and priorities. According to observers, the regime is forced to solve these problems, or will it witness the slow dusk of its 42-year reign.

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