Iran's Conservatives Slam President For Economic Failure

Ensaf News, a reformist website, on Friday reported that students of Amirkabir University in Tehran, one of the largest and most prestigious universities in the country, have said that morality guard patrols have also been issuing warnings to male and female students who talk to each other and confiscated their student cards or written down their details, presumably to keep a record of their "infringements".

Other guards who are stationed at the gates of the university and its dormitories have also been unprecedently strict since universities opened recently after a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic, students say, denying access to those whose appearance is not deemed "appropriate".

"Everybody gets scared of getting into trouble when there is a sound of motorbikes," one of the students at Amirkabir University told Ensaf. She said she had been told off by one of the guards who took her student card number for the record because the front of her short hair showed from under her headscarf. "It was never like this at this university before the pandemic," she said.

According to Ensaf News, students say after the re-opening of higher education institutions this year, the atmosphere has greatly changed. Authorities appointed after hardline President Ebrahim Raisi was elected, they say, are apparently finding it a good time to enforce an aggressive approach to Islamic discipline on students.

According to Ensaf News, the morality guards have in some cases forced girls to return to their dormitories and change into more "modest" coats. The new strict measures to which they are not accustomed, students say, have affected their attendance in classes because even one's color of socks can get them into trouble.

Students use social media to share experiences. They write that in some universities, including Tehran University, they are now required to wear at least veils similar to nuns instead of ordinary headscarves to cover their shoulders and that they are prevented from entering if they don't.

Since hijab became compulsory in Iran, within a couple of years from the Islamic Revolution of 1979, all government offices and universities have had special officers monitoring women's abidance by the rules of compulsory hijab and preventing those failing to meet their standards of modesty from entering the premises.

Men whose clothing looked "too western", too tight, or those who wore short-sleeve shirts would also be turned away at the gates.

In larger cities most universities in the past two decades only required women to wear regular headscarves and long coats in black or other modest colors such as brown, beige or gray, and trousers coming down to ankles but not the long black veil (chador) that completely covers the body from head to toe.

Universities in some smaller, more conservative towns, however, have always required girls to wear the veil. Many students, particularly those from large cities studying in smaller towns, would bring the veil with them to campus and only wear it when they were close to the gate.

Authorities have always promoted the long black veil as "the optimum (or best) type of hijab" but only a fraction of Iranian women wear it on a regular basis.

In some universities even the Islamic Student Unions have protested to the new strict measures. "Universities are not military barracks and dormitories are not prisons," the Islamic Union of Science and Technology University in Tehran said in a statement on Wednesday.

Although Ghalibaf has already left behind bigger scandals including one involving an 8,000 trillion rial corruption case as the mayor of Tehran (2005-2017) and using drug smugglers' money in his presidential campaign as revealed by former President Hassan Rouhani, this smaller "error" might cost him his position as the speaker of parliament.

Speculations in Tehran indicate that the shopping spree by his family may have not been revealed if it were not for the under-cover photography and filming by elements close to the ultraconservative Paydari Party whose members are Ghalibaf's political rivals in the Majles.

According to Khabar Online website, "Ghalibaf suspects that his political rivals in Paydari Party have conspired to publish a video that shows his family at the airport." The website further quoted Iranian journalist Saba Azarpeik, who posted a picture of Qalibaf's daughter in Turkey on Twitter, as having said: "Who do you think followed Ghalibaf's family in Turkey and took this photograph?" She added: "Mr. Ghalibaf! It appears that as far as some others are concerned, your career has come to an end!"

Azarpeik wrote in another tweet: "Even if the disclosure about Ghalibaf's family is part of a Paydari Party project, we should not ignore this scandal. Our collective knowledge can challenge Ghalibaf about corruption and at the same time criticize the Paydari cult for its Taliban-like ideology." She wrote in a third tweet: "If he cannot control his own family, he should tell us about it. Perhaps the country's officials should think again about handing over the affairs of the nation to him."

Meanwhile, another Iranian journalist Sadeq Hosseini wrote that the scandal is an indication of political rivalries in the conservative camp as hardliners are trying to take revenge for Ghalibaf's lack of support for the bill to restrict social media access among other things. Khabar Online has characterized the episode as Paydari Party leading member Saeed Jalili's project to target Ghalibaf.

Khabar Online observed that "except Ghalibaf's son Elias who has defended his father, many including university students, business activists, workers, academics, clerics and political elites have criticized him for his family's shopping spree, reminding that he has always pretended to be an advocate of ‘Jihadist Economy’ and austerity measures.

All this is happening against the backdrop of a major election at the Majles next week to choose the parliament's next speaker. Until last week, despite all the manoeuvres of his political rivals, Ghalibaf was almost sure that he was going to win and start a second term as Majles Speaker, an extremely high position equal in rank with the judiciary chief and the president of the state.

Some of his staunch rivals including current Tehran Mayor Alireza Zakani have effectively ended their bid for the post. But there is one heavyweight rival who is eyeing the position. He is Deputy Speaker Ali Nikzad, who is a key member of Paydari Party.

With the silent escalation of disputes between Qalibaf and President Ebrahim Raisi, Nikzad who was the chairman of Raisi's presidential election campaign as his closest confidant would be the ideal candidate for the post of Majles speaker, as far as Raisi and his team are concerned.

Nikzad, born in 1965 in Ardabil was the governor General of Ardabil Province under former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and later become his minister of roads and urban planning and acting minister of housing. Like most Ahmadinejad aides, he distanced himself from him in public after 2011 when the former president fell out with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Although Nikzad has a good chance of being elected as the parliament's next speaker, Iranian lawmakers know from history, somebody might whisper a message from Khamenei's office a few minutes before voting and demand a vote for Ghalibaf.

"Layette-gate" and "Ghalibaf" rose to the top five hottest Persian Twitter hashtags on Wednesday and have remained there since it was revealed that Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf’s wife, daughter and son-in-law had returned from a "layette-shopping" trip to Turkey with massive extra luggage including a baby bed and stroller which they could easily find in Tehran.

Critics accuse Ghalibaf of hypocrisy for admonishing others for luxury and telling Iranians they should support domestically made products, and telling those who are suffering economic hardships to be patient, when his own family travels abroad to buy luxury products.

In a tweet Wednesday, Mohammad Parsi, journalist, said those like Ghalibaf who promote domestic production, particularly of cars -- despite their very low safety standards resuting in thousands of deaths every year -- are not even prepared to buy their grandchildren's strollers in Iran.

Others have asked Ghalibaf how his family could afford luxury layette-shopping abroad if all that he and his family members own is the very modest assets he declared when running for president in 2017.

Ghalibaf’s son and allies argue that he should not be held responsible for his daughter's "mistake". One of the Twitterati reminded them that this was not the case when hardliners of the Guardian Council excluded former Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani from the presidential elections because his daughter had lived and studied abroad.

Mostafa Faghihi, the editor of Entekhab, a news website close to Rouhani, in a tweet Wednesday referred to the rumors apparently propagated by Ghalibaf allies that his ultra-hardliner rivals in the parliament, the Paydari Front, may be using the scandal to oust him as speaker to drown "the people's voice". "It makes me laugh! One asks what good these imaginary voices have done for people?"

The news of the scandal has spread far and wide among Iranians. On Thursday teachers chanted against Ghalibaf in rallies they held in cities and towns across the country in protest to their low salaries. "One layette set less could solve our problems," teachers chanted in Isfahan.

Media controlled by the Revolutionary Guard, IRGC rushed to Ghalibaf’s defense. Javan newspaper on Thursday claimed that such allegations were "cowardly" attempts to "destroy" the parliament speaker's reputation and influence the outcome of upcoming elections of the Parliament's presidium.

Fars news agency, another IRGC-linked media outlet, also denied the truth of "layette-shopping" and said it had made enquiries from the airline and confirmed that the Ghalibaf family had had no extra luggage upon their return to Tehran.

Relatively independent media, however, strongly criticized Ghalibaf and even called for his resignation. The reformist Aftab newspaper on Thursday ran three separate articles on the "layette-gate" story including one with the headline, "Mr. Ghalibaf, Resignation Please".

"It will be written in history books that the wife and daughter of this country's parliament speaker went layette-shopping in Turkey when Iranian people were struggling to feed themselves," Aftab said in one article and reminded Ghalibaf of his own attacks on rival politicians in the past for similar luxury.

The footage of Maghsoudi showed her apparently resisting the arrest of her brother, Hamid-Reza Maghsoudi, who was in her car at a gas station in Boroujerd, Lorestan province, on April 16.

The clip shows Fatemeh Maghsoudi, the city’s parliamentary representative, calling for help and attempting to free her brother from three police officers trying to take him into custody. Hamid-Reza Maghsoudi had been on the run since sentenced to five years in prison in January for selling a property he did not own.

Maghsoudi later claimed the officers had not introduced themselves, making her think he was the victim of an attempted kidnap. But some social media users were outraged and argued that she had not been complying with the law.

In an interview with the Iranian Labour News Agency published Wednesday, Maghsoudi, who is secretary of the women’s faction in parliament, took issue with Tasnim News for describing her as a reformist. She insisted she was a principlist and “completely a follower” of the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf’s wife, daughter and son-in-law arrived at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini airport on Tuesday from Istanbul with apparently a large layette set they bought from Turkey. People at the airport didn’t recognize them at first but when a photo of the family circulated on social media, their identity was revealed, followed by a barrage of criticism, and resurfacing of other alleged corruption cases against the family.

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf became parliament speaker in 2020 after 'revolutionary principlists' or hardliners swept an engineered election, when most reformists were banned from running as candidates.

The harsh reaction to the incident is because of the hardship most Iranian face with 40-percent inflation and an eight-fold drop in the value of the national currency, impoverishing tens of millions of middle-class people.

Something that added to the controversy was a video of Ghalibaf in the 2017 presidential debates in which he censured a former minister for traveling to Italy to buy baby clothes. “You people think our economy will get better, never!” Ghalibaf is heard saying in the video.

The word for the layette in Persian is ‘sismuni’ a relic of Sanskrit that has survived in the language from Old Persian. Social media users have added the suffix for political scandals “gate” to it and are sharing the hashtag ‘SismuniGate’ in reference to the Watergate scandal.

In reaction to the latest chapter of Ghalibafs’ scandals, many activists and officials have called for the resignation of the parliament speaker. Reformist political commentator Abbas Abdi, however, says the news is so devastating that as a matter of principle he must resign from all his positions, but his replacement will definitely be worse than him. “So, I do not suggest resignation” he added.

The more important issue here is contradictory behavior by officials, he said, noting that “These paradoxes are not limited to this small case that has been exposed. It has destroyed almost all areas of Iran’s political and social life”.

Another civil activist, Vahid Ashtari, referring to government policies said it is not possible to preach to people to buy Iranian-made cars and other products, ban the import of home appliances, and send your family to Turkey to buy ‘sismuni’.

University professor and political activist Rahmatollah Bigdeli called for Ghalibaf’s to step aside, saying, "Only Ghalibaf's resignation will erase this stain”.

Ghalibaf's son Elias, criticized the trip by his sister, and said, “My sister and her husband did something that is absolutely wrong, especially in the current economic situation people face”. However, he added his father shouldn’t be judged by the actions of his sister, something also echoed by his media assistant, Mohammad Saeed Ahadian.

Ghalibaf is a household name in many corruption cases in the Islamic Republic. During his term as mayor of the capital Tehran, several of his deputies and people in his close circle were sentenced to 20 to 30 years in prison but the judiciary never prosecuted him, maybe because he is a close relative of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

During the same period, Ghalibaf handed over lands with a total area of 71,397 square meters to his wife’s charity institute in 2011, apart from another 2.5 trillion rials, nearly $100 million at the time.

An audio file of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard commanders discussing massive financial corruption that leaked in February also directly involved Ghalibaf.

Some Iranian social media users say the country’s push to restrict the internet in Iran is aimed at preventing the exposure of such scandals by the Islamic Republic’s authorities and their families – especially their relatives who have been making the best use of their position since President Ebrahim Raisi took office.