Iranian Goalie Faces Disciplinary Action After Hugging Female Fan

“Last year, the financial resources allocated to the preservation and restoration of historical sites were 900,000 Tomans ($200) and monuments 13 million Tomans ($3,000),” Ali Darabi said on Tuesday. “The fact that all this historical greatness and cultural heritage should be preserved and restored with this minimal budget is beyond me.”

With 27 sites, Iran ranks among the top 10 countries with the most cultural heritage sites in UNESCO's World Heritage List. As a baseline, a report from 2023 in Euronews shows an €800 million budget for preserving cultural heritage in Italy. A similar budget for Germany in 2020 was €647 million.

Immediately following these remarks, media reports and expert opinions warned of the long-standing mismanagement that has threatened the survival of historical monuments. In particular, the poor condition of Persepolis, the 2500-year-old epicenter of the Achaemenid Empire, was highlighted.

Specialists warned that this UNESCO World Heritage Site faces a crisis of lichen fungus invasion. While a combination of acid rain and the region's climate is responsible for the growth of the lichen, experts have criticized the National Heritage Department for failing to protect the site.

Maziar Kazemi, former head of the conservation department at Persepolis, told Iran International: "Lichens are one of the natural factors that contributed to the destruction of the Achaemenid sites of the past. Parts of the area with more humidity and less direct sunlight always suffer from this problem."

Tackling these issues requires permanent budgets so specialists can conduct continuous research and investigation. They also need to be able to collaborate with international groups.”

He said sites such as Persepolis, which are considered pre-Islamic monuments, have “never received adequate budget allocations”. He also noted the challenges of facilitating the visa issuance process and bilateral cooperation with international teams."

According to Kazemi, an Italian expert team had carried out a joint project to treat lichens some time ago, but the project was abandoned.

“The Ministry of Cultural Heritage's trickle-down budgets and the strictness of entry and exit of foreign expert teams will not allow continuous monitoring of natural damages such as lichen,” Kazemi emphasized.

Experts have also warned that lichens were damaging Iranian cuneiform inscriptions, particularly in Biston, a historical complex located 30 kilometers northeast of Kermanshah city, southwest of Iran.

The Sivand dam is also blamed for increasing humidity around Pasargad and Persepolis. Before it was built in 2007, UNESCO warned about the dangers of the dam to historical monuments.

Speaking to ISNA news agency, Gholamreza Miri highlighted that sanctions and domestic issues have hindered the ability to manage saffron exports effectively.

Direct saffron exports to key markets like the United States and Saudi Arabia are currently unfeasible due to sanctions. Consequently, Iranian saffron is being rerouted through countries like Afghanistan, the UAE, and Spain before reaching the global market.

"To export saffron to China and India, we must pay 38 percent and 14 percent tariffs respectively, which makes it not cost-effective for exporters, thus increasing the finished cost. As a result, some buyers prefer to purchase saffron from Afghan traders or smugglers," he said.

Farshid Manuchehri, Secretary of Iran’s National Saffron Council, reported that Afghanistan had purchased 40 tons of Iranian saffron last year, only to resell it in Iran’s target markets at higher prices, branding it as Afghan-produced.

Miri also noted in January that most of Iran's saffron is smuggled to Afghanistan and packed in Spain.

Miri said that high customs duties and embargoes are among the factors for trafficking with almost half of the value of Iran's annual saffron production ending up in the pockets of smugglers.

The illegal trade is exacerbated by extreme weather conditions that have halved saffron production in Iran, the world's primary supplier of the spice. Climate change has devastated areas once thriving with saffron cultivation, impacting local economies and global supply chains.

Since her arrest on April 15, she has been arrested twice and reportedly faced sexual assault and other abuses at the hands of the morality police, incidents she bravely detailed in public disclosures amid a hardened presence of the patrol vans around Tehran and other cities.

Her re-arrest just one day after her initial arrest aligns with the reactivation of the Plan Noor initiative, under which the morality police have escalated their enforcement of the compulsory hijab. The intensified crackdown has sparked a wave of violent encounters involving women who oppose the dress code regulations, emphasizing the harsh realities faced by those who resist.

The renewed enforcement effort comes in the wake of a directive from Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. In a recent sermon, Khamenei demanded increased measures against what he termed "religious norm-breaking" activities, explicitly underscoring the mandatory nature of the hijab as a "religious decree."

The increased enforcement has led to heightened tensions and confrontations across various Iranian cities, signaling an escalation in governmental efforts to impose control over women’s dress—a policy that has been met with persistent resistance since it was mandated in 1981, following the Islamic Revolution.

Iran has battled nationwide hijab rebellion since the death in morality police custody of Mahsa Amini in September 2022, an event which sparked a nationwide uprising and the greatest challenge to the regime since the founding of the Islamic Republic in 1979. During protests, Iran's security forces killed at least 500 civilians and arrested thousands more in a brutal crackdown on dissent which continues to today.

According to ILNA, Alireza Khorrami, who represents the Polyacryl Isfahan workers, said the current condition is the result of government mismanagement and a petrochemicals price hike.

Khorrami detailed that a government decision last September to adjust feedstock prices in the textile industry, coupled with an increase in the base price of petrochemical products has pushed raw material costs by 30 percent. This sharp rise has seriously destabilized the financial foundations of the factory.

“The situation has risen to the point where continuing the production is economically unjustifiable and has a deep impact on the liquidity of the company,” added Khorrami.

Polyacryl Isfahan, founded in 1974, was once considered among the most flourishing Iranian industrial complexes but years of managerial neglect and the impact of international sanctions crippled its operations. The factory was previously shut down and was revived in 2017.

The government's unresponsiveness had compounded the current predicament of the factory despite repeated appeals for intervention.

With the looming closure of the factory, Khorrami said that at least 2,000 workers would become jobless and the closure marks a loss for the country in terms of its industrial capacity, mainly in the textile sector.

Over the past few years, skilled workers in Iran have also voiced their frustrations over the widening gap between their earnings and soaring inflation.

Speaking to ILNA news agency, Mohammad Mohammadi-Bakhsh, said that "many people are currently taking advantage of the opportunity, including traders, officials, sports teams, and economic teams."

The announcement comes at a time when Iran's economy faces record inflation and widespread poverty, the ability to purchase such luxury jets limited to the country's wealthy political elite who would also be the limited few to be given security clearance to operate such aircraft over Iranian airspace.

The average Iranian is currently struggling to survive with at least one third now living below the poverty line in the last 18 months, the average wage now as low as $400 a month. Basic food costs have become prohibitive and commodities like gas soaring. 

Ongoing sanctions for Iran's nuclear program, rights abuses and support to Russia's war on Ukraine have heavily impacted Iran's aviation sector including import restrictions and domestic production limitations.

The Iranian aviation fleet holds a meager inventory, with just 330 aircraft, and less than 200 actively utilized. The industry is struggling to meet operational aircraft targets, with only 180 aircraft currently in service against a planned 250 by the end of last year.

Despite Mohammadi-Bakhsh's previous announcements of a surge in operational aircraft around Norouz, which saw grounded planes returning to service and boosting numbers to 178 during the festive season, the sector still falls short. Last year's efforts reportedly added over 50 aircraft and helicopters to the fleet, yet the target remained unmet.