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Ahmadinejad Concedes to Supreme Leader
November 2, 2012 | 3:51pm
On November 1, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad pledged to focus on Iran’s economic problems instead of domestic quarrels in a letter to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The letter was posted on the president’s website just one day after Khamenei called public disputes treasonous. The letter’s language seemingly attempts to calm internal tensions, although the president also notes his own high standing in Iran’s political system. Ahmadinejad expects Khamenei to “safeguard” his status. The following are press excerpts out of Tehran.
"The government welcomes the timely guidelines [by the Supreme Leader] ... [and] won't engage in domestic quarrels and disputes and will patiently tolerate all unkind behavior as before.”
“The nation and the country are under pressure as a result of enemy plans… My colleagues and I have employed all our energies around the clock to handle the affairs and confront wide-ranging conspiracies by those who wish us ill, to alleviate pressures on the people.”
“But it requires the contribution of all branches and a sense of their responsibility and co-operation with the government, which is now at the forefront of (fighting the West’s) full-fledged economic war.”
"I'm sure his excellency emphasizes the absolute safeguarding of the constitution and the high status of the nation's elected president, who holds the highest official rank after the Supreme Leader.”
“Your excellency has for several times reiterated that everyone should act in a way as to have a vibrant election [for president next June] and with the maximum voter turnout. The presidential election is the manifestation of national will and symbol of popular sovereignty and the highest show of democracy in the country.”
Khamenei Comments: Squabbling Is Treasonous
November 1, 2012 | 9:41am
On October 31, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei rebuked officials for publically squabbling to score political points. “From today to election day [for president next June], whoever willfully takes disputes to the people and uses their sentiments to provoke differences has definitely committed treason against the state,” Khamenei said in a televised speech. He was apparently referring to the recent bout between President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and judicial chief Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani over the president’s right to visit Evin prison. The Supreme Leader has grown increasingly impatient with public officials over the past month. He has also spoken out recently on other sensitive issues, including the economy, nuclear negotiations and Syria. The following are excerpts from his statements in October.
Public Disputes
“The recent exchange of letters and their contents were not important at all but these disputes should not be made public as it gives ammunition to foreign media and enemies to create controversy. From today to election day, whoever willfully takes disputes to the people and uses their sentiments to provoke differences has definitely committed treason against the state.” October 31
“Before and during the [presidential] election, all of our government officials should focus their efforts on preserving political peace in the country. They should not let the political atmosphere of the country become turbulent.” October 15
“The country’s officials should know and accept their responsibilities and not blame each other. They should be united and sympathize with each other.” October 10
Economy and Sanctions
“Iran will get through the current difficulties, because of the vigilance of the Iranian nation and Iranian officials.. Are we worse off or you [the West]? In the streets of major European countries there are demonstrations day and night.” October 10
“During the past 33 years, the Islamic Republic of Iran has faced different pressures including political, security, military and economic ones and sanctions; but the Iranian nation has not only thwarted these pressures through its steadfastness but it has become more powerful, too.” October 3
Family Planning
“One of the mistakes we made in the ‘90s was population control. Government officials were wrong on this matter, and I, too, had a part. May God and history forgive us.” October 10
Nuclear Negotiations
“When did Iran leave negotiations over different global issues? This is a deception, a propaganda trick…This is Iran's answer: you are not powerful enough to force a revolutionary, resistant, insightful and aware nation to bow to your demands and greed.” October 16
Syria
“We support the Syrian nation and we are opposed to any kind of foreign activity and interference in Syria. Any kind of reform in that country should be carried out by the Syrian people and through completely domestic methods.” October 25
The West
“Corrupt agents of America, NATO and Zionism…are trying to divert the flood-like movement of Muslim youth and turn them against each other in the name of Islam. They are trying to turn the anti-colonialism and anti-Zionism jihad into blind terrorism in the streets of the world of Islam so that Muslims shed each other’s blood.” October 25
“Unfortunately in spite of all the work we have done since the beginning of the Revolution, a completely wrong idea was established in our culture and the effects have not yet disappeared. This wrong idea is the feeling that we need the West, the feeling that we are inferior to the West.” October 11
Talk of Tehran: The Tumbling Economy
October 31, 2012 | 1:14pm
Helia Ighani
Iran’s media is increasingly outspoken about the troubled economy, but newspapers are deeply divided over who is at fault. Editorials have become even sharper since new E.U. sanctions on Iran’s national oil, tanker, and gas companies were imposed in October.
Tehran now faces the worst financial crisis since the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War. In October 2012, the International Energy Agency reported that exports dropped significantly from 2.2 million barrels per day at the end of 2011 to 860,000 barrels per day in September 2012. Iran’s oil industry accounts for around 80 percent of its exports.
The national currency dropped 80 percent in value against the dollar in 2012, with a 40 percent plunge in September alone. Iranian financial analysts criticized the Central Bank’s handling of the country’s soaring inflation rate. Official statements pegged September’s inflation rate at 24 percent, but foreign analysts said the October’s inflation rate could be as high as 50 percent to 70 percent. Tehran’s Grand Bazaar shut down temporarily in early October 2012 after public demonstrations over risings costs.
Both liberal and centrist media criticized the government’s failure to provide tangible solutions to the growing economic crisis. On October 17, conservative parliamentarian Kazem Jalali even suggested that the government should “not write off internal mismanagement as the cause of sanctions.”
Media Faults Government
Kaleme (or “Word,” a reformist newspaper)
“The drop in the national currency’s value could undoubtedly lead to the collapse of the economy. If this problem is not solved, the situation could get out of control.” October 10
“A lack of government preparation to deal with sanctions is increasingly evident.” October 8
“The most severe new sanctions on Iran are the same kind that destroyed Iraq’s economy…The present economic crisis is intolerable and could get worse.” October 15
Mardom Salari (or “Democracy,” a centrist newspaper)
“During the Iran-Iraq War, the government was able to provide basic necessities. Our country is now at the height of political and economic power in the region, yet the government is unable to provide basic necessities due to economic mismanagement.” October 23
Media Faults the U.N. and the West
Khorasan News (region in northeastern Iran, a conservative newspaper)
“The enemies of this nation impose harsh conditions and continue to implement tougher sanctions! The bullying by Iran’s enemies is despicable. They still believe political pressure and economic sanctions will cripple the nation and bring it to its knees.” October 23
Jomhouri Eslami (or “Islamic Republic,” a conservative newspaper)
“Western sanctions against Iran are based on unsubstantiated claims about the peaceful nature of its nuclear program. Regarding oil, the international trade embargo is having an impact on the rest of the world too.” October 18
Resalat (or “Prophecy,” a conservative newspaper)
“Despite more E.U. sanctions, the Islamic Republic of Iran has found alternative sources of trade to keep the economy active…The West wants to tempt us with materialism, and it downplays Iran’s economic strength. October 16
Key to Iranian newspapers
Jomhouri Eslami or “Islamic Republic”: conservative
Kaleme or “Word”: reformist
Khorasan News, a region in northeastern Iran: conservative
Mardom Salari or “Democracy”: centrist
Resalat or “Prophecy”: conservative
Click here to read September 2012’s Talk of Tehran.
Helia Ighani is a graduate student at George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs and a research assistant at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
Tribunal Blames Iran for Abuses
October 31, 2012 | 1:07pm
On October 27, the Iran Tribunal charged that the Islamic Republic was responsible “for gross violations of human rights against its citizens under the International Covenant of Civil and Political rights” during the 1980s. The document is an interim report, with a full judgment expected in November. The tribunal was established by victims and their families in 2007 to increase pressure on the United Nations to investigate alleged atrocities. The tribunal, based at The Hague, has no legal authority but the participation of top international judges and lawyers has given it credibility. After the report’s release, tribunal member Geoffrey Nice, a former prosecutor at the U.N. International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, told Agence France Presse that “the most important thing is to leave a record.”
The tribunal built on the June 2012 Truth Commission hearings in London. Almost 100 victims and experts have testified. The following are excerpts from the interim judgment.
The Iran Tribunal has been a unique undertaking. For the first time, it has given victims an opportunity to address the world about atrocities committed in the Islamic Republic of Iran between 1981 and 1988…There are six forms of gross human rights abuses to which the evidence presented to the Truth Commission and this Tribunal point incontrovertibly: murder; torture; unjust imprisonment; sexual violence; persecution and enforced disappearance. As the prosecutor noted in his closing submissions:
Firstly, the Islamic Republic of Iran committed murder. Nima Sarvestani’s documentary showed graves of executed prisoners stretching out as far as the eye can see; the gravedigger of Shiraz reported the delivery of sixty bodies on a single occasion, of victims at most twenty years old. Men were arrested at ten in the morning and dead by eleven; entire families were eliminated and whole wards purged; rows of prisoners were shot by firing squad, still breathing until they were finished off by coups de grâce; and we heard from this morning’s witness of how child prisoners were required to administer these coups de grâce; truckloads of bodies were tipped into mass graves. The Tribunal heard extensive evidence of the murder of minors. In no case was an execution ordered in accordance with due process. In 1988, pursuant to a fatwa issued by Ayatollah Khomeini, over 5,000 political prisoners were killed (most were hanging) over the space of a few months.
Secondly, there has been not one witness who was not tortured in prison, both physically and mentally. Prisoners were hanged from the ceiling by their arms, flogged on the soles of their feet, beaten, deprived of sleep, kept in solitary confinement, subjected to mock executions and forced to watch other prisoners being tortured – or were tortured in the presence of their children. Shokufeh Sakhi told the Tribunal how she was subjected to sensory deprivation in a dark box (the “coffin”) for hours on end, month after month. The general effect was to turn prisoners into zombies” by destroying their senses of self and dignity. Another witness told the Tribunal of the “psychological rape” that turned him into a “puppet”, who would shoot his fellow prisoners as member of a firing squad of tavabeen (repenters).
Click here for the full text.
Judiciary Slams Ahmadinejad
October 26, 2012 | 10:17am
On October 21, Iran’s judiciary denied President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad permission to visit his press advisor in Evin prison. Ali Akbar Javanfekr had been arrested and jailed for six months in September while Ahmadinejad was in New York for the U.N. General Assembly. The court convicted him of “insulting the Supreme Leader” and “publishing material contrary to Islamic codes and public morality.”
On October 22, the president wrote judiciary chief Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani that he had a constitutional right to visit the prison without the “permission or agreement of the judiciary.”
Two days later, Larijani countered that the president had an “incorrect understanding of the responsibilities of the three branches of power and the limits of duties.” He told Iran’s student news agency that “on no account will a visit to Evin prison be allowed without coordination.” On the same day, Larijani sent an open letter challenging Ahmadinejad to respect the constitution if he is truly “concerned about the protection of the people’s fundamental rights.”
The confrontation between the president and judiciary chief reflects growing domestic tensions as Ahmadinejad and his inner circle come under fire. The president now has few allies left in the government. His position began to weaken in April 2011, during a public dispute with Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei over Ahmadinejad’s dismissal of Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi. The president’s supporters also did poorly in both rounds of parliamentary elections in March and May 2012. And on October 23, 102 members of parliament signed a petition summoning Ahmadinejad for questioning on Iran’s growing economic crisis.
The following are excerpts from President Ahmadinejad’s letter, with responses from key Iranian leaders.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani
“You have twice insisted that inspecting Evin prison is not in the best interests of the country and you have said that you disapprove of it. But the constitution does not require any permission or approval from the judiciary for the president in administering his legal duties…
“How come administering the constitution is not in the best interests of the country? If that is the view that prevails in the judiciary, can't we assume that some constitutional laws and basic human rights are being violated or neglected – or sacrificed for the best interests of individuals in the judiciary?...
“In a situation where the president…is being so easily accused by you, how can [regular] people of this country, who have no supporter except God, ensure they have judicial security?...
“Based on what article of the constitution, can you [the judiciary] make a political interpretation of an issue and prevent the constitution’s implementation? Can you, as head of the judiciary, issue a verdict based on your political discretion?”
Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani
"This assumption that the president has supervision over other branches of power is totally wrong…It is unconstitutional to claim that the president has the right to visit prisons without permission from the judiciary." October 24 to the Iranian Students News Agency
Prosecutor General Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejei
“As we are faced with special circumstances and the country's priorities are the economy and people's living conditions... visiting a prison is extraneous... and politically questionable.” October 21 to the Iranian Students New Agency and Mehr News
Hojatoleslam Ali Saeedi, Supreme Leader Khamenei’s representative in the IRGC
“The problem is that presidents confuse their roles and authority with the powers of the Supreme Leader... and they want act outside of their legal authority.” October 22 to Etemad newspaper
The Islamists Are Coming
The Islamists Are Coming, edited by Robin Wright, surveys the rise of Islamist groups in the wake of the Arab Spring. Often lumped together, the more than 50 Islamist parties with millions of followers now constitute a whole new spectrum—separate from either militants or secular parties. They will shape the new order in the world’s most volatile region more than any other political bloc. Yet they have diverse goals and different constituencies. Sometimes they are even rivals.
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