Cleric Says People Are Hanged In Iran For Crimes Involving $10

On Friday, White House National Security Council spokesperson, John Kirby, said: “This is a full-scale defense partnership that is harmful to Ukraine, to Iran’s neighbors, and to the international community. We are continuing to use all the tools at our disposal to expose and disrupt these activities including by sharing this with the public — and we are prepared to do more.”

Providing further proof for the deepening military relationship between Russia and Iran, The White House released satellite imagery of the planned location of the UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) manufacturing plant in Russia’s Alabuga Special Economic Zone, about 600 miles (nearly 1,000 kilometers) east of Moscow. The satellite image of the planned location of the purported drone manufacturing plant was taken on April 3.

“We have information that Russia is receiving materials from Iran needed to build a UAV manufacturing plant inside Russia,” said Kirby, who claims the plant could be fully operational early next year.

The intelligence confirmed data by a Wall Street Journal report in February that the two countries had plans to build such a factory, which could make at least 6,000 drones for the war in Ukraine.

Another declassified government graphic shows the drones are built in Iran, shipped across the Caspian Sea to Russia — with a port Iran helped develop — and then transferred to two air bases. “The support is flowing both ways: from Iran to Russia, and from Russia to Iran,” Kirby said.

Kirby added that in response, Russia has offered Iran “unprecedented” defense cooperation, including billions of dollars’ worth of military equipment such as Su-35 fighter jets, attack helicopters, radars and Yak-130 combat trainer aircraft.

According to Kirby, Washington will continue to impose sanctions on the entities involved in the transfer of Iranian military equipment. This is in addition to new steps the Biden administration, along with the European Union and the United Kingdom, has already taken to restrict the transfer of electronic components found in Iranian drones to the battlefield in Ukraine.

Already dozens of individuals and entities involved in sending Iranian Shahed kamikaze drones to Russia have been sanctioned by the United States and Europe. Russia has already used hundreds of these drones to attack military and civilian targets in Ukraine, or to try to overwhelm air defenses during its large-scale missile attacks on cities.

He said the US has released the information in order to the public “to expose and disrupt” the countries’ “full-scale defense partnership.”

A senior administration official -- who asked for anonymity -- told Politico that “Actors like Iran want this kind of behavior to be secret. We are shining a light on it publicly to let Iran know we are aware of exactly what they’re doing, and to build pressure on Iran internationally, having alerted other countries to Iran’s actions."

Kirby added that the administration also plans to announce “a new government advisory to help businesses and other governments better understand the risks posed by Iran’s [unmanned aerial vehicle] program and the illicit practices Iran uses to procure components for it.”

“This will help governments and businesses put in place measures to ensure they are not inadvertently contributing to Iran’s UAV program,” he stated.

The rial this week broke through the important psychological barrier of 500,000 against the US dollar, as several media reports spoke of secret contacts with the United States to reach a sort of an interim agreement that would unblock more than $15 billion of Iran’s frozen funds.

The US denied the reports of a deal on Thursday, although it did not reject reports of ongoing contacts. Tehran’s currency market was officially closed on Friday, so the impact of the US announcement, if any, will be felt on Saturday.

Commentators speaking to local media in Tehran said that releasing even $20 billion will not affect the fundamentals of a weak economy and would represent a temporary respite from the pain of oil export sanctions.

Sajjad Burbur, an Iran-based economist, speaking to the reformist Aftab News website Friday warned of the fast-galloping money supply in the country and predicted that eventually the rial can fall further, reaching 700,000 against the US dollar.

Burbur argued that the Islamic Republic has no means of addressing the economic crisis except “therapy talk”, meaning trying to put a good face on the state of affairs and present exaggerated or fake news.

He argued that the government continues to print money to pay its bills, and this will inevitably devalue the currency. “In 2018, the money supply was less than half of all liquidity, but now it is far more than that. All factors that help the dollar rise against the rial have converged together,” he pointed out.

With far less oil export income because of US sanctions, the government continues to print money and makes daily statements to calm the markets.

Promises of close economic cooperation with Russia and China and hints of talks with the United States are designed to boost confidence in the economy, but experts point out that these will not have a lasting impact and economic fundamentals will have the last word.

With annual inflation approaching 70 percent, affording housing and food has become impossible for millions of families.

Housing specially has risen more than ten-fold in the past five years, while salaries have increased at most five-fold. 

Owners see their property as a hedge against inflation and adjust prices and rents according to the value of the US dollar, while people’s income is far less.

The average price for one square meter of an apartment in Tehran is around $1,000, roughly the same as in 2018 before the rial bean to fall. People are migrating out of large cities and commuting long distances just to afford rents.

The former chairman of Iran’s central bank, Abdolnasser Hemmati, in a tweet on Friday asked President Ebrahim Raisi why real estate inflation numbers have been withheld by the government in the past five months.

“Do you know anything about how much rents have gone up?” Hemmati asked the president.

Some people hold a full-time job just to pay the rent, while either they or their spouses must work a second job just to afford food. The average worker has a monthly salary of $150, down from $220 last year when the rial was higher at around 300,000 to the dollar.

According to the state-run Bakhtar News Agency, the Taliban military held a war game in Nimruz,located in the southwestern part of the country and to the east of Iran’s Sistan and Baluchestan province.

The drills came amidst growing tensions, fueled by a decades-old water dispute. Iran has accused Afghanistan's Taliban of violating a 1973 treaty by restricting the flow of water from the Helmand River to Iran's parched eastern regions, an accusation denied by the Taliban.

During May, a series of incidents escalated to bring tensions between the two countries to their worst in years, the deadliest of which seeing two Iranian soldiers and one Taliban fighter killed after shooting broke out near a border post.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi had earlier warned the Taliban over disregarding Iran's water rights under the 1973 treaty while the Taliban rejected the perceived threat, with a former Taliban official mocking the president in a video that went viral.

Evidence also surfaced late last month showing a convoy of Taliban tanks deployed from Herat to Islam Qala on the border with Iran with forces seen stationed in the region with heavy military equipment, suggesting a more heavily armed presence than before the water dispute escalated.

The head of Iran’s Red Crescent, Pir-Hossein Kolivand, sent a letter to the president of the Ukrainian Red Cross Society, Mykola Polishchuk, expressing readiness to send relief teams and humanitarian aid to the flood-hit regions in what could be perceived as a move to save face in the wake of revelations that Iranian drones and weaponry has been sent to Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.

The destruction of the facility by Russian forces on Tuesday unleashed mass flooding, forcing thousands of residents to flee and wreaking environmental havoc.

Audaciously, Kolivand even described the destruction of the dam as a “tragic incident” as he downplayed the devastation Russia continues to deal to Ukraine's civilians. The latest attack on the dam affected the lives of a large number of innocent people, forcing the evacuations of residents of surrounding villages.

Kolivand claimed that the Islamic Republic's principled policy is to help other countries based on humanitarian grounds to protect the lives of innocent people and reduce their suffering, the gesture unlikely to be taken seriously amidst months of uprising which has seen hundreds of civilians killed by the regime's security forces and tens of thousands more arrested.

It is likely to anger Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky who said last month that “thanks to the sanctions, the number of missiles they [the Russians] produce has decreased several times. However, there are such challenges as Iran which has sold them [Russia] more than 1,000 Iranian-made drones and other weapons.”

Iran first denied it had supplied drones to Russia but in early November foreign minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian admitted the deliveries, while claiming they were sent before the Russian invasion. Recent intelligence reports suggest that Tehran may also be planning to supply long-range missiles to Russia.

Speaking on the sidelines of a ceremony in the northern province of Mazandaran Wednesday, Brigadier General Radan said his force will be reporting lack of adequate action in enforcing hijab laws by government offices as administrative infringement. 

He also vowed that police will be surveilling Caspian Sea beaches, in Mazandaran and Gilan provinces, by special patrols and electronically to prevent any behavior violating hijab laws. 

Threats against unveiled women have increased with the arrival of summer which has always been a season for women to ignore the strict government dress code. 

In July 2022, after weeks of harsher measures on the streets, President Ebrahim Raisi ordered all government entities to strictly implement a “chastity and hijab” law approved by the Supreme Cultural Revolution Council under hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005. 

Not long after that, the death of the 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in the custody of hijab enforcers, morality police, fuelled protests that spread throughout the country and lasted for several months. 

Since March hardliners have tried to put an end to women’s increasing defiance of the compulsory hijab and to reclaim the lost ground but to no avail: More women are now walking around, commuting, shopping, and jogging unveiled. 

Iran's media published the final version of a new hijab bill prepared jointly by the judiciary and the government. An earlier draft which was revealed two weeks ago was strongly criticized by hardliners which saw its punishments for unveiling “too lenient” to be able to stop women from unveiling. 

Punishments proposed in the bill are mainly cash fines ranging from 5 million rials ($10) to 240 million rials ($480) for repeat offenders, and deprivation from employment and social media activity for athletes, celebrity artists and activists who unveil. 

The bill, however, also includes provisions against “anyone” other than authorized entities, who confronts citizens in public and uses violence and threats against unveiled women. 

Hardliners such as Raisi’s very influential father-in-law, Ayatollah Ahmad Alamolhoda, who represents Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in Khorasan-e Razavi Province, have strongly criticized the bill. 

Alamolhoda alleged on May 26 that the bill, if passed, would promote unveiling rather than prevent it. 

Firebrand Hossein Shariatmadari, the editor of the flagship hardliner newspaper Kayhan wrote about the first version of the bill on May 21. “A look at the content of the bill and comparison with the existing laws suggests that the bill has been prepared with the possible aim of removing the existing legal obstacles [against unveiling] and preparing the ground for the spread of this nasty and abominable phenomenon rather than taking action against unveiling,” 

The population in general, however, even in many smaller and more conservative areas of the country, appears to have become much more tolerant of women who do not dress according to the prescribed codes and their newfound freedom from the hijab. 

“Women know that it’s now or never because the mullahs are afraid of more protests. They are persisting with all their might, given this opportunity, to normalize the presence of unveiled women in the society,” Ronak, a 34-year-old engineer in Tehran told Iran International. 

“They can pass any laws they want to convince their supporters they are doing something or reinstate their control but after the recent protests they have realized that the enforcement of such laws by force could be very costly and one little push too far may cause the Berlin Wall to crash down,” she said. “That’s why they are telling the vigilantes to back down.”