Iran's Judiciary Vows Harsh Sentences For Protesters
After a threat by hardliner lawmakers last week asking that protesters be sentenced to death, Iran's Judiciary Tuesday signaled its intention to do just that.
After a threat by hardliner lawmakers last week asking that protesters be sentenced to death, Iran's Judiciary Tuesday signaled its intention to do just that.
Judiciary spokesman Masoud Setayeshi said that courts will deal firmly with anyone who causes “disruptions or commits crimes” during the ongoing wave of antigovernment protests.
The Judiciary’s statement is ominous for many activists because there are no independent courts in Iran. Both prosecutors and judges answer to the same Judiciary controlled by hardliners. In most political trials also, there is no due process of law, no freedom to choose defense lawyers and little access to case files.
Iran’s Judiciary can frame people for crimes they did not commit, as multiple cases have demonstrated in the past. It can defy what “disruption” means and sentence any protester to death for causing an ill-defined act of disruption.
One of the biggest challenges to Iran's clerical leaders since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the seven-week-old demonstrations have persisted despite a deadly crackdown and severe warnings from security forces.
More than 1,000 people have been indicted in connection with what the government calls "riots".
"Now, the public, even protesters who are not supportive of riots, demand from the judiciary and security institutions to deal with the few people who have caused disturbances in a firm, deterrent and legal manner," judiciary spokesman Masoud Setayeshi claimed.
Another keyword in this statement is “riots”. The regime calls the protesters rioters, without ever having issued a demonstration permit to anyone other than its loyal followers. ‘Reformist’ parties that are not opposed to the Islamic Republic asked for an official permit to gather in September and received no answer.
Anti-government demonstrations erupted in September after the death of a Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini, who had been detained by morality police for allegedly flouting the Islamic Republic's strict dress code imposed on women.
The activist HRANA news agency said that 318 protesters had been killed in the unrest as of Saturday, including 49 minors. Thirty-eight members of the security forces had also been killed, it said.
State media said last month that more than 46 members of the security forces, including police officers, had been killed. Government officials have not provided an estimate of any wider death count.
Center for Human Rights in Iran, a Norway-based human rights organization also expressed concern last week regarding the fate of detained protesters saying, “dozens of them have been charged with the security-related accusation of ‘moharebeh’ (fighting God) and ‘corruption on earth’ which carry the death penalty.”
Iranian leaders have again accused enemies including the United States of fomenting the unrest. More than 220 hardline Iranian lawmakers who urged the judiciary to "deal decisively" with the perpetrators followed the same unsubstantiated argument that protesters are either foreign agents or have been “deceived” by them.
The US State Department once again rejected the accusation on Monday. Spokesperson Ned Price told reporters, “The fact is that Iran – its government is facing problems that are fundamentally of its own making. This is – these protests are so powerful because they are fundamentally not about us. They’re not about any external actor. They are about the legitimate, they’re about the genuine, they’re about the heartfelt aspirations of the Iranian people.”
People from all walks of life have taken part in the protests, with students and women playing a prominent role, waving and burning headscarves.
On the same day when 227 members of Iran’s parliament (Majles) called for death sentence for those arrested during recent protests, Iran's Minister of Tourism and Cultural Heritage, Ezzatollah Zarghami, advocated dialogue between the government and the protesters, highlighting some chaos and indecision in the ruling circles.
Speaking in a meeting with Sharif University students Sunday, Zarghami, a former Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) officer who was once Iran's culture minister and the head of the country's state television, admitted that "Some of the approaches of Iranian officials are wrong but they fear the regime will face a serious danger if they put a step back from their position.”
Referring to the news of young Iranian knocking Shiite clerics' turbans off their heads, Zarghami said these are low-income clerics who are paying for the luxurious lifestyle of rich mullahs.
He insisted that Iran needs reforms and many members of the elite have warned the government about this. "Many others warned about the morality police and said what they were doing was wrong," he said.
Public statements by many officials, such as Zarghami, show they are still stuck in the perception that if hijab enforcement is relaxed, protests will end, but what protesters say in the streets is that they have passed that stage and want the regime to fall.
Zarghami who has been active on social media for years, acknowledged that Iranians no longer trust the official media, and journalist do not write some of what is going on in the society, fearing government reprisal. He admitted that "You cannot say anything [in Iran] if there is no social media."
He criticized officials, without naming anyone, for failing to understand the people and their anger, and said he himself was frustrated because of the way his candidacy in the 2021 presidential election was handled.
In one of the most controversial comments he made in the presence of the students, he said: "When you look at some financial corruption cases, you will see that individuals from all parts of the establishment are involved in it."
But why Zarghami can say these things and get away while other officials do not? Perhaps one of the reasons is that others have no ambition for the future and simply wish to protect what they have. But Zarghami, more likely, still wants to be Iran's next president and having smelled the need for change, he probably thinks the regime will have no choice other than surrendering to some of the protesters' demands. By trying to talk to Sharif University Students who have been in the forefront of the protests, he is touting himself as the man who can make peace with Iran's angry young men and women. But the question is to what extent hardliners in the core of the regime, and students in the forefront of protests, would listen to him.
Reformist cultural activist Hadi Khaniki has likened the need to hold dialogue with the youth to chemotherapy to cure a cancer patient. "It is painful and hard, but it might have some good effect," Khaniki told Etemad Online website. A cancer patient himself, Khaniki said: "The country has a cancer which has its roots among top-level officials and if no one pays any attention to that, the cancer will spread to the other parts of the system.
In another development, Hassan Khomeini, the ambitious grandson of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khmomeini, the fundamentalist founder of the Islamic Republic suggested in an interview Etemad Online that "The government had better begin to listen to the people." He said if the situation develops into a deadlock, our only way out would be to seek democratic solutions. He ignored the fact that he has got his position of wealth and power through non-democratic ways, in a hereditary system.
The most urgent problem is a fast-falling national currency that began to nosedive in early November, dropping to historic lows almost on daily basis. The US dollar has risen from 295,000 rials to 365,000 in two months. But that is just an early signal of what is to come.
The retail sector is having its own multiple problems. First, during protests people are buying less, as recently the garment industry complained of very low sales to consumers who are in no mood to go shopping.
Second, a draconian denial of access to the Internet by the government, to contain the protests, has badly hurt hundreds of thousands of small businesses dependent on sales through social media.
Third, Iranian consumers have begun boycotting large retailers and businesses believed to be controlled by the Revolutionary Guard and other regime entities, as another tool in their civil disobedience movement.
Digikala, Iran’s Amazon, and Mihan dairy and food company have been targeted by activists on social media, who tell the people not to enrich the government’s suppression machine. In a matter of days, there are signs of lower sales by both companies, which sponsored appeals from their workers who asked the public not to harm their livelihoods.
Fourth, and the perhaps the most predictable is a looming shortage of natural gas in the winter, as pressure in Iran’s South Pars maritime fields in the Persian Gulf are gradually falling. The country has failed to secure capital and western technology to improve drilling and pumping system to boost production.
Iran has the world’s second largest natural gas reserves after Russia with almost 30 trillion cubic meters of potential supply, but it needs to invest $50 billion and use special technology only a few western firms can provide to keep its level of daily production at around 700 million cubic meters.
The former head of the national gas company, Hamidreza Eraghi told ILNA news website in Tehran on November 7, that this winter the country might be forced to buy gas from Turkmenistan to be able to supply electricity and keep industries in business. Already, in the past few years as consumption has risen, there have been both shortages of electricity and gas. The government sells energy at ridiculously cheap rates and consumers have no incentive to save, with usage fast increasing each year.
There are also ongoing strikes in the oil and gas sectors in solidarity with nationwide protests, which will further hurt production.
What Iran needs most is imported technology for horizontal drilling for gas, Eraghi said, and this winter imports should increase to prevent an industrial shutdown.
The government has periodically highlighted the need to boost prices to lower consumption, but that would anger a public that has become impoverished in the past four years after the United States imposed sanctions on Iran’s oil exports. Already, with nationwide antigovernment protests raging, the government has no way to increase energy prices.
Ordinary Iranians have fallen victim to high inflation rate for years. No one knows exactly what the current annual inflation rate is, but if one would believe the government, it is at least 40 percent, with food prices having risen by 100 percent in the past 12 months. The falling national currency will accelerate inflation as Iran imports a significant part of its food and raw materials.
With a convergence of so many negative economic developments there is very little the regime can do to stop the protesters, who openly say they want to get rid of the Islamic Republic, not only for its economic mismanagement but also for its draconian denial of social freedoms.