Parliament Impeaches Industry Minister Amid Cries Of ‘Car Mafia’

Friday Prayers Imams in some major cities expressed their unhappiness over the government's performance, similar to criticism by many conservatives who backed President Ebrahim Raisi’s election less than two years ago.

Hashem Hosseini Bushehri, the Friday Prayers Imam of Qom, the venue of the country's most important seminary said in his sermon on Friday: "State officials spend most of their time in meetings with unknown results." He suggested that "Decisions made in those meetings should be followed up seriously by executive officials."

Referring to the declining value of Iran’s currency, he said, "The government's monetary policies should not change constantly. Some investors say they cannot count on the government's monetary regulations even for one day as things might change."

Bushehri also echoed Ali Khamenei’s recent remarks criticizing discord among the executive, legislative and judiciary bodies.

Friday Prayer Imams are appointees of the Supreme Leader and often reinforce his messages. Their demand for economic improvement can be seen as a sign that Khamenei’s patience is running out, as high inflation can trigger more protests.

Without mentioning the ongoing strikes and protests in the country's industrial centers, Bushehri called on the government on the occasion of Labor Day to find legal ways to help Iranian workers. 

While inflation has topped 50 percent and the rial has halved in value, workers’ monthly salaries hover around $120-150. In the past ten days workers at more than 100 companies and plants went on strike.

Bushehri also called for "a competitive parliamentary election, so that the enemies will not be able to talk sarcastically about low turnout in Iranian elections."

The temporary Friday Prayers Imam of Mashhad, another religious city in Iran, Mohammad Bagher Farzaneh, who was standing in for the firebrand cleric Ahmad Alamolhoda criticized the government for the worsening situation and said: "Economic problems cannot be concealed."

He said more than 51 percent of Iranians in big cities do not own a home and inflation has impoverished ordinary people. 

However, also echoing Khamenei he said that the "economic problems can be solved if officials stand united, obey the Supreme Leader and have sympathy for each other." He added that it was a shame that 43 years after the Islamic revolution, the country's leader has to point out discords among the heads of the three powers of the government.

Recently, Ghasem Saedi, a senior lawmaker from Khouzestan Province had said that "The government has ruined the country's economic security," and warned the government that it cannot protect its credibility by chanting meaningless slogans. 

In another part of his sermons, Farzaneh said: "Today, no one can claim that the United States does not have any infiltrators in Iran." He said that infiltrators are the main element behind the discord among the country's officials, without saying which high-ranking official in the government is a US infiltrator.

Meanwhile, the Friday Prayer Imam of Tehran, Hassan Aboutorabi-Fard, the only Imam with some executive experience under former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, also criticized the government for making economic decisions without thinking about the consequences and without considering the financial resources needed for implementing those decisions. 

Aboutorabi-Fard warned the country's "rulers and managers" that their performance will inevitably affect all aspects of people’s life. 

However, it was interesting that he also warned the government that measures to enforce hijab should be taken in a way to boost national unity rather than creating discord among the people and the government. 

In recent weeks, as more women have defied the regime’s dress code and appear in public without a veil, hardliners in the government have been pushing for more enforcement measures.

Already, harsh policies against women triggered major nationwide protests leading to more than 500 deaths. 

Nour News, affiliated with the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), reported that unknown gunmen fired at the car of Major Alireza Shahraki.

The officer's wife was also severely wounded in the attack and taken to hospital in critical condition. Judiciary officials say no one has been detained yet but a manhunt is underway to arrest the perpetrators.

Halvash website that covers Baluchestan events reported that Shahraki used "extremely violent" methods against detainees in the past years.

Earlier in March, two other police officers were gunned down in the restive province with a Sunni-majority population. The attack occurred in a region called Golshan.

Local media identified the two officers as Mohsen Pudinei and Ehsan Shahraki who were shot "while carrying out a security mission regarding Friday prayers".

Last week, tensions built up in Fanuj in the same province after regime forces ran over two motorcycles with their vehicles killing a young man.

The outraged local population took to the streets to protest the actions of the repressive forces in the province. Local media reported that police opened fire at the protesters.

In recent months, pressure on the people in Sistan-Baluchistan has increased, and the situation in various cities has been described as very tense, especially on Fridays, when residents come out to protest against the regime.

The protests began on September 30, 2022, after nationwide unrest broke out following the death of Mahsa Amini.

Hossein Rasouli, an official from the Workers’ House said Saturday that currently, the minimum monthly wage of workers does not even reach eighty million rials (150 USD).

Although the government mandated wage is called the "minimum" wage but that is what most workers receive.

“The wages of the workers have increased by only 27% this year, but this increase is for those workers who are formally employed and does not include a large part of [temporary or contract] workers,” he underlined.

Earlier, the Coordinating Council of Teachers Associations said to prevent further impoverishment of the lower-class wages must be determined in US dollars.

Real incomes in Iran began to lag behind inflation after the establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979, but salaries were increasing from 2000-2010 when monthly minimum wage hit a high of about $275 in 2010. This coincided with the time when the United Nations Security Council began imposing sanctions to force Tehran to roll back its nuclear program.

A few months into the presidency of Ebrahim Raisi, when inflation was around 40 percent, the High Council of Labor increased the minimum wage by an unprecedented 57 percent in early 2022 after two consecutive years of very high inflation. At the time minimum wage almost equaled $220.

However, the rial lost half of its value in the past 8 months and the minimum wage, without housing allowance, has dropped to around $120 a month.

Rising prices and declining incomes have led to more protests in the previous months with thousands of workers still on strike.

The protest rally was attended by activist Vahid Beheshti who has been on a hunger strike in London since February 23 outside the UK Foreign Office to raise awareness for the need to designate the IRGC.

In a speech, the 45-year-old Beheshti encouraged the Iranian opposition to foster solidarity. “They managed to strike us with dynamite in the past four months but let’s resume [our unity] from here, from London,” he said referring to the recent disputes among opposition groups and figures.

Activist Hamed Esmaeilion who resigned from the Alliance for Freedom and Democracy in Iranlast week also attended the rally and, in a speech, accused the IRGC of destroying Iran’s economy, environment and the future of all Iranians.

“Stop denying the truth. This evil entity should not have a place in the future of Iran,” he told western governments, including Britain and the European Union that have been cautious to designate the IRGC for fear of further alienating the regime and in turn harm the prospects of negotiations over its nuclear program.

Esmaeilion also urged Beheshti who is now on day 66 of his hunger strike and in a wheelchair to end his action.

Also attending the rally was Alireza Akhondi, a Swedish-Iranian member of the Swedish Parliament who organized a large protest rally in Strasbourg, France, in January to encourage the European Parliament to designate the IRGC as a terrorist organization.

“IRGC’s revolting crimes are evident. It should be put on the list of terrorist groups the same as Da’ish and the Hezbollah of Lebanon,” Shahran Tabari, an Iranian-British journalist, a member of the Labour Party, and an expert on Iran-UK relationship, told the participants in the rally while stressing that the UK’s recent sanctions against the IRGC were “good but insufficient.”

Protesters chanted slogans such as “IRGC is terrorist”, “Down with the child killing regime” and “Down with the Islamic Republic.”

Several other Iranians have joined Beheshti’s protest action in the past weeks and set up their tents for a sit-in in front of the Foreign Office building.

Beheshti met with Tariq Ahmad, Minister of State for the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia, at the Foreign Office earlier this week and later said they had discussed the UK’s sanctioning of four more IRGC commanders and the importance of proscribing the IRGC as a terrorist organization.

He had also met with the Minister of State for Security, Tom Tugendhat in March and been visited by MPs including Lord Stuart Polak at his tent.

“The Iranian regime is a dead horse. The UK government must not make a bet on a dead horse and should stand beside the people of Iran,” Beheshti’s wife, Coventry city councillor Mattie Heaven, told the rally.

British-Iranian comedian Omid Jalili also spoke at the rally, demanding the IRGC’s designation by the UK government. “The world will then follow suit,” he said.

Several other gatherings were simultaneously held in other European cities Saturday against the Islamic Republic including in Frankfurt, Germany, where Iranian monarchists gathered together upon a call by Iran's exiled Prince Reza Pahlavi and chanted slogans in his support.

After meeting with Rashid behind closed doors Raisi claimed “the US presence in the region disturbs regional security."

Iraq's president arrived in Tehran along with foreign, water resources, and electricity ministers as well as the national security adviser Saturday morning.

Adding that Americans think about their own interests, not those of the regional countries, Raisi said, "Our relationship with Iraq is based on common interests."

Iran, emboldened by the hasty US withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, has intensified its rhetoric about forcing American troops out of Iraq and Syria.

Referring to the security agreement between the two countries in March Raisi added, “the smallest insecurity in Iraq would be viewed as insecurity in Iran; therefore, Iraq's security is important to Iran.”

Despite the eight-year war between the two neighbors in the 1980s, relations between the Shiite-majority countries have improved significantly since the 2003 invasion which led to the ouster Saddam Hussein.

Raisi further expressed hope that Rashid's visit to Tehran would be "a turning point" in improving ties between the two countries.

With sanctions hitting Iran, Iraq has become one of its major economic lifelines, while Tehran provides Iraq with electricity, gas, and other goods, although US sanctions do not allow Baghdad to make full payments in hard currency that Tehran desperately needs.

This comes as Iran’s financial network in Iraq was bypassing the US sanctions regime at the cost of the Iraqi economy. An informed source in Baghdad told Iran International late in December that Washington has received reports that Iraq is conducting trade with Iran using US dollars despite sanctions.

In early February, Iran International obtained information that revealed some details about the inner workings of a Revolutionary Guard’s Quds force unit tasked with smuggling money from Iraq to Iran. According to the information, the IRGC and the Islamic Republic’s embassy in Iraq were involved in money laundering operations that aim to funnel the regime’s revenues from oil and gas exports back to Iran. As per a repeatedly extended sanctions’ waiver by Washington, Tehran is only allowed to import medicine and some essential goods in exchange for its exports of gas and electricity to its neighboring country.

It is not clear if the issue of Iraq holding more than $11 billion of Iran's money was discussed.

For his part, the Iraqi president said his trip to Iran was intended to expand the already-prospering ties between the two countries.

“Relations between the two countries are coherent and getting stronger, and we must all work to develop them in coordination and continuous cooperation at all levels, including taking into account Iraq’s share of water, especially since most of the tributaries of the Tigris River and Shatt al-Arab originate in the Islamic Republic,” added Iraqi President Abdul Latif Rashid.

There are a number of rivers shared by Iraq and Iran, and access to them has been the source of friction in the past, contributing to the bloody war in the 1980s.

During their joint press conference, Raisi also touched upon the issue saying that “we respect Iraq's right to water according to the agreements signed in the past, and both countries must be committed and adhere to this right so as not to create problems and disruptions.”

Another topic discussed by the two presidents was the drug trade in the Middle East.

“We must cooperate in the fight against drugs, since they have become a cancer that destroys lives,” stressed Rashid.

During the past few years, the sale and use of drugs has increased in the Arab country while Iraqi security forces have intensified their anti-narcotics operations.

Iran is “at the forefront of the fight against drugs,” claimed Raisi, adding that “it is a source of satisfaction that Iraq is also determined in the fight against narcotics.”