Iran International
An Iranian news agency’s use of the title “Ayatollah” for Mojtaba Khamenei has rekindled suspicions that he's being groomed to succeed his father as Supreme Leader.
Social media users have widely interpreted Rasa News Agency’s attempt to promote the supreme leader's son as an ayatollah as confirmation that he's being groomed for leadership. The Supreme Leader being also the highest religious authority must be at least recognized as an ayatollah by Grand Ayatollahs.
The news agency used the title in an announcement for registration of Mojtaba Khamenei’s theology course, (kharej fiqh), at Qom seminary where he has been studying and teaching for a few years now.
Kharej fiqh is the highest level of Shia seminaries and ayatollah is an honorific title for high-ranking Twelver Shia clergy. Unlike academic titles that one gains automatically after completion of a degree, Shia scholars are usually confirmed as ayatollahs only when their teachers, and peers, address them as such.
The 53-year-old Mojtaba Khamenei, the second eldest of Khamenei’s four sons, has until now only been recognized as a hojjat ol-eslam, a much lower rank in the Shiite clerical hierarchy.
Rasa, established in 2003 andknown as the news agency of Qom seminaries,is in the city of Qom where most Iranian Shiite seminaries are located. Rasa Publishers in Persian, English, Arabic, and Urdu.
The news agency calls itself a private media outlet established by seminary scholars and researchers but some Iranian media affiliated with reformists such as the Jamaran news website have claimed that Rasa is funded and run bythe IRGC and criticized it for “meddling in politics”.
Earlier in August, Mir Hossein Mousavi who has been under house arrest since February 2011, warned the nation over the introduction of hereditary leadership, referring to Khamenei’s son Mojtaba. Mousavi’s warning revived rumors about Mojtaba’s activities and his alleged ambition to succeed his father.
Hardliners have fiercely attacked Mousavi, Iran’s Prime Minister from 1981 to 1989, for implicitly taking a shot at Khamenei.
Rumors about Mojtaba Khamenei’s ambitions have been circulating in Iran since 2005 when he was first accused of rigging the presidential election in a bid to bring like-minded politicians to power.
Mousavi who served as the Islamic Republic's first prime minister from October 1981 to August 1989, under then President Ali Khamenei, was put under house arrest nearly two years after the disputed 2009 presidential elections, when the incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was announced the winner in suspicious circumstances at Mousavi’s expense.
During the protests that followed, protesters often chanted against Mojtaba Khamenei who they held responsible for meddling with the election result, bringing Ahmadinejad to power and the crackdown on protesters. “Die, Mojtaba, may you never achieve leadership,” they chanted.
During the past years there have also been rumors about Mojtaba’s involvement in financial corruption cases involving the IRGC. The rumors also charged that he supervised the IRGC Intelligence when Hossein Ta’eb, who was recently fired by Khamenei, headed the organization.
Mojtaba Khamenei is an enigmatic figure who holds no public office in the government and is rarely seen in public but reportedly wields much more influence than the leader’s other sons in powerful organizations such as his father’s office and the IRGC Intelligence Organization (SAS).
Mojtaba Khamenei also has great influence in the country’s propaganda machine including the state-broadcaster (IRIB), and behind-the-scenes political dealings.
Justice for Iran, a London-based non-governmental human rights organization, filed its complaint against Iranian politician and author Ataollah Mohajerani for incitement to terrorism in a 1989 book, Critique of the Satanic Verses Conspiracy, and for defending a death fatwa for blasphemy against Rushdie by Iran’s late leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
“Almost all Muslim schools of jurisprudence share the view that whoever insults the prophet deserves to be killed. His repentance cannot be accepted,” Mohajerani, who was also a cleric in Iran, wrote in his book in which he called the Indian born British writer an “apostate”.
The complaint was filed with the counterterrorism unit of UK police on August 16 against Mohajerani, a British citizen who resides in London, Shadi Sadr, human rights lawyer and one of the Co-founders of Justice for Iran told Iran international Thursday [August 25].
British officials have not yet commented about the complaint filed against Mohajerani.
Some Iranian public figures have alleged that western governments’ “forbearance of the Islamic Republic’s terrorist activities and hatemongering” paved the way for the recent knife attack on Rushdie in the United States while others have accused Mohajerani of defending Khomeini’s fatwa and being an apologist for the Islamic Republic.
“How is it possible that the British government allows a former official of the Islamic Republic of Iran to live in the UK and call for the murder of a British citizen. Mohajerani still defending the fatwa against Salman Rushdie,” Masih Alinejad US-based activist Masih tweeted August 15.
In a series of tweets after Rushdie's stabbing, Mohajerani, a former vice-president and minister of culture and Islamic guidance, implicitly defended writing the book in praise and justification of Khomeini’s fatwa, describing the royalties from the book’s sales as “legitimate and sweet”. Mr. Mohajerani has refused talking to Iran International and other foreign based Persian language media.
Mohajerani later tweeted to deny that he approves of the attack on Rushdi and called the attempt on his life a ‘tragic incident’ but also said he hopes that the British author will cease “insulting prophets and religions during the rest of his life”.
He has responded to the possibility of being investigated by the British authorities and a trial by saying that this will provide him with a “golden opportunity” that he is ready to exploit.
Sadr told Iran International that her organization consulted a group of expert British lawyers about the case before filing its complaint. “The British lawyers said Mohajerani’s writings are evidence of “incitement of terrorism” and “sharing terrorist content”, she said.
Sadr added that the lawyers who were provided with the English translation of Mohajerani’s writings and recent tweets on the attempt on Rushdie’s life in New York in August filed the complaint with the British authorities on behalf of Justice for Iran.
Iran's hardliner media doubled down on praise for the attack on Rushdie as many condemned the stabbing by a man allegedly sympathetic to Shiite extremism.
Khomeini's death fatwa against Rushdie resulted in several failed assassination attempts against him as well as his publishers and translators. Satanic Verses’ Japanese translator, Hitoshi Igarashi, was killed, its Italian translator, Ettore Capriolo, was seriously injured in a stabbing attack, itsNorwegian publisher,William Nygaard, was shot, and an arson attack by a fundamentalist mob against its Turkish translator, Aziz Nesin, at a hotel in Sivas, Turkey, in 1993 led to the death of 37 people. Nesin narrowly escaped.
The details of the corruption scheme reaching $3 billion was exposed by a social media activist after the Iranian parliament published the outcome of an investigation into the case, without naming names.
Although the report presented by the Majles (parliament) vaguely pointed out that many individuals and government organizations were implicated in the case, documents revealed by whistleblowers on social media showed that many regime insiders and organizations affiliated with both leading political factions took bribes from the steel company.
The steel firm paid threw around hundreds of millions of dollars trying to coopt all regime insiders and buy their silence, while its managers engaged in corrupt business practices.
Mobarakeh Steel is a publicly traded company, but government entities hold most shares and managers are political appointees similar to dozens of other government businesses.
Those implicated include political and cultural figures, journalists, publishers, top clerics and their family members, as well as tens of media outlets affiliated with various political factions in Iran.
Semi-officials news agency ISNA reported on Monday that 168 of the 290 lawmakers at the Majles voted for referring the case to the Judiciary. However, various actors have been trying to downplay the significance of the case.
Corruption ‘not systemic’
There has also been a great deal of efforts in the media to prove that corruption is not institutionalized in the government. There is also a lot of sensitivity on the part of government officials including President Ebrahim Raisi toward the term "systemic corruption." Raisi's preferred description is "organized corruption."
Although many news outlets such as Mehr news agency and government officials have tried to attribute the corruption case to the government of President Hassan Rouhani, the ten-page list that has been published on social media includes current and former officials.
Meanwhile, in a paradoxical statement, the public relations office of the Majles has said the sheer publication of this report indicates the system is not corrupt. Earlier President Raisi had also reiterated that "The system is clean," although in the same statement he called on the Judiciary to deal with those behind the corruption case.
Denial and silence by those implicated
ISNA reported that former Vice President Es'haq Jahangiri, former chief of staff of the Presidential office Mahmoud Vaezinejad, and reformist journalist and newspaper publisher Mohammad Atyrianfar have already tried to deny their involvement in the case. This comes while, seminarians and other top clerics as well as government officials implicated have remained silent.
The Iranian state television, IRIB has also offered brief explanations about hundreds of billions of rials it has received from the Mobarakeh Steel Plant. The IRIB accused the publishers of the report of inaccuracy.
Meanwhile, other reports say the suspension of the steel plant from the Tehran Stock Exchange was reversed after one day. Nonetheless, many investors and small shareholders have said on social media that their investments have been ruined.
Other hardline media outlets including Kayhan which operates under the aegis of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's office and Javan newspaper, the mouthpiece of the Revolutionary Guard, IRGC, have so far remained silent about getting money from the steel plant. Also remaining silent are the social media influencers who have reportedly got hefty sums to turn a blind eye to the plant's inappropriate financial transactions.
Despite the reports about referring the case to the Judiciary, no complaint had been filed until Tuesday according to Judiciary Chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, ISNA reported.
Discrediting leaked information
The Majles PR Office stressed that the report and figures published on social media are not the final report about the case and thus are not accurate. This comes while according to social media activists, even the head of the investigation committee has received money from the steel plant although there is no independent verification of the accusation.
What is certain is that social media activists, including hardliner Seyyed Mostafa Bijani have said that reformists and hardline conservative are equally responsible for and involved in the corruption case.
Lotfollah Siahkali, the deputy chief of the Majles investigation committee has said that the corruption case at the Mobarakeh Steel Plant is only the tip of the iceberg and corruption is far more widespread in the government. Nonetheless, Majles Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said on Wednesday that the report should have not been published before due legal investigation.
Although some elements at the Majles still insist that the report is genuinely significant and alarming, it appears that many in the Iranian government would like to push the case under the carpet as too many influential individuals and organizations including the Ministry of Intelligence are involved in the case. Their solution appears to be keeping silent until the case is forgotten or superseded by the next controversial issue in the country.