Iranians Condemn Navalny’s Death, As State Media Treads Carefully
Iranian opposition activists have unequivocally condemned the sudden suspicious death of Alexei Navalny, an outspoken critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Iranian opposition activists have unequivocally condemned the sudden suspicious death of Alexei Navalny, an outspoken critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The Iranian regime is a close ally of Vladimir Putin, while opposition activists see the relationship as an unholy alliance between two brutal dictatorships.
Citing figures provided by World Liberty Congress as to the existence of over one million political prisoners around the world, prominent Iranian dissident Masih Alinejad criticized the inaction of democratic countries.
“Navalny's murder is a chilling reminder of how authoritarian regimes can kill innocent political prisoners while democratic countries are busy with empty condemnations,” she wrote on X, adding that “Putin, Khamenei and other dictators are not only killing dissidents within their countries but they are working together.”
“The alliance of dictators is the real threat facing global security. The problem is clear: when it comes to taking action, dictators are more united and determined than democratic countries,” she further remarked.
Hamed Esmaeilion, another opposition figure, hailed Navalny as a hero and stated that biological terror, exile and prison all failed to silence his voice in the struggle for freedom.
He will be remembered for his greatness and courage contrary to such criminal dictators as Vladimir Putin, Ali Khamenei and Bashar al-Assad who belong to the abyss of history, Esmaeilion pointed out.
Mehrangiz Kar, lawyer and human rights activist, referred to the incident as a murder and said, “Putin, Khamenei’s mentor, killed Navalny, this great man.”
Actress and political activist Nazanin Boniadi urged democracies to take action against the killings of political prisoners by dictators.
“If democracies don’t stand united, autocracies will continue to murder their critics with impunity. Every freedom loving human should turn their outrage into action,” she wrote on X. Many ordinary Iranians also expressed their outrage on social media, likening the Iranian regime to Putin's dictatorial system.
However, the media close to the Iranian regime and the IRGC have been largely silent on Navalny's death. Fars news agency, affiliated with the IRGC, chose not to cover his death at all.
IRNA, the Iranian state news agency, dedicated its coverage of the incident only to the official stance of Russia, reactions of the international community and reports of arrests made during the vigils held in Russia to commemorate the leader of the opposition.
The same kind of coverage can be traced in Mehr news agency, close to Iran’s hardliners, which only reported Navalny’s death, international condemnations and Russia’s responses. Reflecting the remarks of Russian ambassador to Washington Anatoly Antonov, Mehr entitled one of its reports on the incident as “the US’ attempt to interfere with Russia’s internal affairs following Navalny’s death.”
IRGC-affiliated Tasnim news agency also employed the same reporting but not commenting strategy. In a short 7-paragraph report titled “Putin’s pro-West opponent dies: Who was Alexei Navalny?” Tasnim simply wrote about his trials and sentences.
The relatively more independent media in Iran, nonetheless, used a more analytical and investigative approach to Navalny’s demise.
Khabaronline traditional-conservative website mentioned the remarks of Ahmad Zeidabadi, a commentator in Tehran.
“Accepting that Navalny died of natural causes in a Russian prison is like accepting that Putin has fulfilled his repeated promises not to attack Ukraine,” Zeidabadi said, further adding that “the world is becoming a more cruel place day by day and Putin and Putinism play a significant role in this process.”
“It is as if the continuous rise and fall of autocratic leaders and regimes in Russia is the destiny of this great and genius-breeding country. May God save it,” he went on to say.
Reformist daily Shargh published an article entitled “Navalny and the Russian syndrome.” Referring to the fates of the prominent Putin critics such as Alexander Litvinenko, Yevgeny Prigozhin, Sergei Skripal, Alexander Perepilichny and Vladimir Kara-Murza, Shargh ironically attributed the incidents to “a Russia syndrome which affects Putin’s opponents.”
Lotfollah Dejakam, the Friday prayers Imam of Shiraz has said that the 35 men have realized that they are too old for the Assembly's membership and that they have decided to leave the task to younger clerics.
The AoE has always been a predominantly elder's assembly and photos from the previous and current rounds of the assembly show elderly clerics dozing off during meetings.
Although in the Iranian press the Majles (parliament) elections is in the spotlight, the Assembly of experts election which will be held on the same date, March 1, is the one which is more important as its results affect the fate of succession and post-Khamenei Iran.
On Wednesday, Mohammad Emami Kashani, a 92-year-old senior cleric of the Assembly was said to have been disqualified from running. But reports on Thursday said that Emami Kashani has withdrawn his candidacy because of his medical conditions.
Earlier, Ahmad Jannati, the oldest member of the Assembly at 97 declared his withdrawal from the competition although he still retains his extremely significant post as the Secretary of election watchdog Guardian Council.
Mostafa Faghihi, the editor of centrist Entekhab news website had said that Jannati and others' withdrawal from the Assembly of Experts elections is part of a possible project to pave the way for President Ebrahim Raisi's chairmanship at the new round of the Assembly.
Other observers have also said the same about the withdrawal of dozens of senior clerics from the competition, stating that they would not want to have a relatively younger and definitely less educated cleric as their superior at the Assembly.
Still others believe the dynamics is being furthered by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei who wants to be in control of the assembly's leadership. He is also said to prefer to have Raisi as the Chairman of the Assembly so that Raisi could become the next supreme leader or play a key part in naming Khamenei's son, Mojtaba as the successor.
According to a report published by Khabar Online website, hardline clerics in Tehran and Qom have reached an agreement about the list of 11 candidates for Tehran. The clerics in Qom and Tehran gave a list of 16 candidates each, but 5 of the candidates in each list are not on the other group's list. Still this partial agreement among conservatives is interesting as they have not been able to react to a consensus over their lists in the previous three rounds of the Assembly election.
All the 11 candidates shared by Tehran and Qom clerics are middle-aged mullahs previously trusted by Khamenei. They include former Intelligence Minister Ghorban Ali Dorri Najafabadi, Seminary Dean Alireza E'rafi, and Islamic Propaganda Office Chairman Mahmoud Mohammadi Araghi.
The five candidates exclusive to Tehran clerics' list are led by former hardliner prosecutor Ali Razini, but all the five on the Qom clerics' list are less known and relatively younger clerics.
Critics in Iran say that now, even without an election on March 1, the ideal scene is set for Khamenei's favorite clerics to enter the next Assembly of Experts under Raisi’s chairmanship without any challenge when the time comes later this summer.
In the meantime, to save Raisi the embarrassment of being the only candidate in South Khorasan for the region's only seat at the Assembly, the Guardian Council endorsed a hitherto unknown cleric out of the blue to be the second candidate from the remote constituency. However, everyone in Iran knows how the rest of the process works to ensure that Raisi wins the competition if there is a competition at all. This process is what Iranian electioneers call engineering; something in between election rigging and grafting.