Iran International
Iran's top Sunni cleric Mowlavi Abdolhamid says clerics and religious seminaries must not be funded by the government to remain independent and critical.
“Clerics must be independent and have their own opinions to be able to speak the truth and call the government to enjoin what is good and forbid it from doing what is wrong,” Abdolhamid said in yet another fiery Friday sermon in the southeastern city of Zahedan.
Abdolhamid who has proven to be the unofficial voice of the country’s Sunni population told his congregation that he has on many occasions warned that seminary students and teachers must not receive salaries from the government and seminaries should not be funded by the government.
The Sunni cleric has somewhat become popular even among Shiites for standing up to the regime.
The outspoken cleric stressed that he believes people should be responsible for funding and managing religious institutions. “It’s a great mistake to allocate a budget to seminaries and religious scholars.”
Salaried religious scholars will be dependent on the government and “their mouths will be shut like they have adopted silence [about what the government is doing] now,” he said.
Iran's government annually allocates tens of millions of dollars to religious seminaries and other religious institutions that play the role of its propaganda arm.
In his sermon Abdolhamid also referred to the recent revelations of former director of the notorious Evin prison in Tehran, Hossein Mortazavi-Zanjani, who on April 29 had alleged that President Ebrahim Raisi, then the deputy prosecutor of Tehran, was directly involved in the killing of political prisoners in 1988.
Mortazavi-Zanjani had also said that virgin female prisoners were forcibly married to jailers and raped by them before being executed to stop them from being admitted to heaven on account of their virginity when they died.
“I was shocked by what I heard,” he said, adding that religious scholars (senior clergy) must not remain silent about this matter and the atrocities happening in Iranian prisons now.
The executions were carried out based on a fatwa by Iran's then supreme leader, Ruhollah Khomeini, against the MEK (The People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran) which carried out a wave of bombings in Iran and struck an alliance with Saddam Hussein during the 1980-88 war.
Most victims were linked to the MEK but there were also others with links to leftist and secular groups such as Fadaiyan Khalq Organization (FKO) and the Tudeh Party as well as some Kurdish groups such as Komala and the Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran.
In his sermon, Abdolhamid once again brought up the issue of a referendum to allow the people of Iran to express their views about clerical rule.
“It was our fault that they don’t want Islam and they should not be hit in the head to accept a certain thing now that they are dissatisfied [with the Islamic Republic],” he said, adding that everyone, whether religious or non-religious, should be allowed to live peacefully together and build the country’s future.
“The religious should be allowed to pray and those without religion should be able to do whatever they want. That’s why there should be referendum to find out what the absolute majority of people want and accept,” he said.
Abdolhamid was among the first regime critics who called for a constitutional referendum about 50 days into the wave of protests following the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in September.
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has flatly dismissed the possibility of a referendum and suggested that people lack the faculties required for making decisions about important matters.
After the prayers, Abdolhamid’s congregation took to the streets of Zahedan for the 35th consecutive week and chanted slogans against the regime. Residents have been protesting every Friday since September 30, when security forces opened fire on civilians, killing nearly 90 protesters. The incident has come to be known as the Bloody Friday of Zahedan.
Sunnis constitute at least 10% of Iran's 88 million population and Zahedan, where thousands attend Abdolhamid’s Friday prayers every week is one of the few Sunni-majority cities in predominantly Shiite Iran.
At the same time, an Iranian academic has asserted that "ideology" is the root cause of the country's problems.
Hamid Reza Jalaipour told Entemad Online website that Iran is currently entangled in a web of crises as most Iranians see no promising prospect for the country's future. "The elites are thinking of leaving the country for good. The youths evade marriage and those who are married do not want to have children as many are affected by widespread poverty," said Jalaipour.
According to the politician, the Islamic Republic is facing all sorts of financial, environmental, social and international crises, which it is not capable of resolving. The government has failed to hold free and fair elections. On the other hand, the people have not managed to convince the government through their protests that its strategic policies are wrong, he said.
Jalaipour added: "The government is in a political impasse and the people are painfully struggling to find a way out. It is as though the regime is holding a grudge against the people. As a result, society is in a state of political suspension."
He added that in the meantime, four different political narratives are being furthered in Iran by different groups. However, none of them is powerful enough to confront the country's crises.
The first narrative is one of "unified government" or consolidation of power by limiting elections to contests among conservatives and restricting reformists and moderates' political participation. This was pushed through by hardliners in the past 3 years and has failed, angering the people.
The next narrative is about bringing "reforms." This requires a free and fair electoral system which is non-existent in Iran.
However, Jalaipour failed to say why real elections have not been allowed, probably because he did not want to annoy the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Revolutionary Guards, who have been ‘engineering elections in Iran at least since 2005.
The third narrative is one of "transition" from the current system by holding a referendum on key issues, and the fourth narrative is "regime change." The regime strictly rules out the idea of transition and is prepared to shed blood to prevent regime change. Jalaipoir insisted that none of these four narratives are able to solve the country's problems. The only solution is empowering the middle class. However, he stated that the economic crisis during the past decade has left no middle class as most sociologists and economists maintain.
Meanwhile, Iranian academic Mahmoud Jamsaz told Rouydad24 website in Tehran that Iran's chaotic economy which is based on giving concessions to well-connected individuals and is alien to the idea of development. He maintained that the root cause of Iran's problems is the ideological political system, which has effectively ruined the country's economy and international relations. This system, said Jamsaz, is against economic development as it does not serve the interests of the privileged few.
According to Jamsaz, the country is struggling in a quagmire created by rising inflation. It is interesting that both Jalaipour and Jamsaz likened the country's situation to a quagmire in which Iranians struggle for survival.
Jamzas said: "The quagmire is deeper and more turbulent in the areas of financial matters and housing. The annual inflation figures are unbelievable, but still many Iranians believe that actual inflation is way higher than the figures announced by the government. Even the government's own Planning and Budget Organization questions the validity of those figures."
He said, "one of the main problems of Iran's economy is that it is at the service of the government and is meant to serve the ideological interests of the regime. So, the government prefers its ideological interests to national interests." He added that the government is constantly deceiving itself to justify its wrong policies. In such a situation, even the revival of the JCPOA and lifting of the sanctions cannot resolve the crisis. He reiterated: "Ideology cannot solve the country's problems because ideology is the problem."