Bomb Blast At Shia Center Linked To Iran Kills Several In Afghanistan

Speaking in an interview with Didban Iran [Iran Monitor] website, Ayatollah Seyyed Mohammad-Javad Alavi-Boroujerdi who teaches jurisprudence and principles of Shiism at the Qom Seminary, added that there are home-based churches in Qom for Muslims who have converted to Christianity.

Converting to another religion is forbidden in Islam and Iran's government does not allow or recognize conversion.

Presenting further evidence about Iranian youths abandoning Shiism, Boroujerdi said that some people in Qom are converting to Budhism. "The number of Wahabi Muslims in Iran is also on the rise. They have increased their activities and have their own Friday Prayer congregations," Said Boroujerdi.

He criticized Iranian hardliners for violent methods to make people stick to strict Shiite religious rules and said we cannot divide people into insiders and outsiders and then tell the outsiders to leave the country.

Boroujerdi warned that "some Iranians including the Bakhtiaris are separating from us, and that is a problem." He added: "These are the people who used to be with us. Let us be friends with the people and maintain our communication with them," he advised regime officials.

"I feel responsible for the youngsters who have left us and became Christian. He is a Shite boy and I must bring him back into the fold. I cannot let him go."

The scholar added that the 12th Imam of the Shiites went into the occult because a divide occurred among the people after the 11th Imam's death and the people at the time did not embrace the 12th Imam's leadership." Meanwhile, he stressed that "people including state officials who promise the hidden Imam's imminent return are liars. He will emerge only when Allah wants him to emerge from the occult."

Boroujerdi regretted that young clerics who start their career at the seminary in all honesty and modesty, gradually do away with these traits and may only try to return to them when they are too old. He asked: "What have we done to young Shiites who fought a war for us and are still enduring the sanctions?"

Other clerics and commentators have also said that Iranian youth have turned their back to Shiism. Conservative website Alef in Iran wrote last April that "the presence of religion as part of the government has led to a decline in religious beliefs."

The website added, "the experience of the Islamic Republic in Iran showed that political religion, i.e., clerics’ presence in political positions and in the government has led to a decline in the people's religious beliefs."

The report further added that Iranians were more religious under the Shah than in the Islamic Republic where clerics are holding political power. Iranian clerics' social status declined further during more than five months of street protests against the government, as people came out to demand a secular government with no clerics in key positions.

Reports on the Qom Seminary's own website indicate that clerics and government officials knew since more than ten years ago that Iranian youths have turned their backs to religion.

Meanwhile, media reports indicate that even Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei knows that Iranians demand a secular government and that the youths are turning away from his religious government.

Nonetheless, some clerics and Muslim scholars maintain that young Iranians are only weary of the version of religion that treats them in a dogmatic and unilateral way. They are fed up with the paradoxes that we feed them. otherwise, they are not against the essence of religion."

The rial has risen 25 percent since February 26 when it dropped to a historic low of 600,000 to the US dollar. A visit by the head of the UN nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, to Tehran on March 4 helped the rial rally, seen as a possible opening to resolve the country’s nuclear dispute with the United States.

The restoration of ties with Saudi Arabia provided another significant boost.

The rial traded at around 450,000 to the dollar Saturday, as the representative of currency exchange dealers in Tehran claimed that demand for dollars “has dropped to zero.”

Iran’s currency began losing value when for US President Donald Trump decided to withdraw from the Obama-era nuclear deal, the JCPOA, in 2018. By August 2022, the rial stood at 300,000 to the dollar, a nine-fold drop since Trump’s decision.

After Biden administration nuclear talks with Tehran reached a deadlock in September, the rial began to fall again reaching its lowest point in late February.

Hope about a possible foreign policy shift to help end Iran’s isolation immediately impacts rial’s value. An agreement with the United States would lift crippling economic sanctions, allowing Iran to export more oil at higher prices and gain hard currency revenues it needs for imports.

Stalkerware is a commercially available software that can be installed on smartphone devices, enabling perpetrators to monitor an individual’s private life without their knowledge.

According to the company's annual report, a total of 1,754 people has been victim of stalking in Iran in 2022. It also adds that the total number of victims of digital stalking in the world in 2022 was 29,312; a number that shows a relative decrease compared to the year before.

The data covers the affected number of Kaspersky users, with the total global number of affected individuals likely to be much higher.

The "Coalition Against Stalkerware" organization estimates the number of victims of these spyware programs to be around one million every year.

Stalkerware can be downloaded and easily installed by anyone with an Internet connection. A perpetrator can use the software to monitor huge volumes of personal data and check device location, text messages, social media chats, photos, browser history and more.

Russia has the highest number of victims of spyware in the world with 8,281 cases, followed by Brazil with 4,969 and India with 1,807 victims.

In this way, Iran is the fourth country with the most victims of spyware in the world.

The attack occurred in a region called Golshan on Friday. However, no information has been published about the identity of the assailants, their possible arrest or their motives.

Local media identified the two officers as Mohsen Pudinei and Ehsan Shahraki who were shot "while carrying out a security mission regarding Friday prayers".

The government has been trying to contain protests in the province on Fridays following weekly prayers.

State news agencies say the attack was carried out by “armed thugs”. The term is a vague description that officials use to refer to armed people affiliated with political groups opposed to the regime and sometimes drug traffickers.

After the "Bloody Friday" of Zahedan, the cities of Sistan and Baluchistan have been the scene of massive street protests every Friday after prayers.

The Bloody Friday in Zahedan, the provincial capital of Sistan-Baluchestan took place September 30, when security forces killed at least 93 people, and injured hundreds more during antigovernment protests.

No one has been arrested and prosecuted for shooting protesters in the province.

In recent months, pressure on the people of Sistan-Baluchistan has increased, and the situation in various cities has been described as very tense, especially on Fridays.

Amid tensions, the commander of the police force of this province was changed on February 27 for the second time since the beginning of the protests following the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody.

The official who requested anonymity was accompanying Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during his trip to Italy on Saturday. He insisted that the Israeli government knew about the talks between Tehran and Riyadh “for a long time” and was following the process.

The official said that Saudi Arabia’s decision to re-establish diplomatic ties with Iran, severed since 2016, will not have an impact on the chances of Israeli-Saudi relations.

The Netanyahu government and President Joe Biden’s administration have been trying to expand the 2020 Abraham Accords to include Saudi Arabia, which has been holding out, making demands both on Israel and the United States.

However, since the news of the Iranian-Saudi deal broke on Friday, many commentators have seen the development as a win for China that brokered the agreement.

The Wall Street Journal in an editorial blamed Biden and the Democrats for annoying the Saudis and pushing them into China’s arms. The Journal said, “the symbolic import is hard to miss as Democrats in Washington do everything they can to harass and annoy the Saudis,” adding that getting a cold shoulder from Washington Riyadh decided to “hedge” its bets.

The Israeli official also said that in case of a decision to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, Israel “is neither dependent on anyone, nor waiting for anyone’s permission.” However, he added that Israel will be happy with US political and military support and backing from European countries.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has described the resumption of ties between Tehran and Riyadh as harmful to chances of bringing Saudi Arabia into the Abraham Accords, saying that it is a serious defeat for Netanyahu.

Netanyahu faces serious opposition at home for his domestic policies and his critics charge that because of his entanglements at home, he missed the Saudi-Iranian rapprochement.

The senior official agreed that Israel’s internal crisis impacts its confrontation with the Islamic Republic and for this reason the political row should be ended as soon as possible.

Some Israeli media argued that the resumption of diplomatic relation will not dampen Saudi Arabia’s opposition to the Shiite regime in Iran and Riyadh remain open to joining the Abraham accords.

The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times reported this week that Saudi Arabia is demanding concessions from the Biden administration to join the peace accords with Israel. It wants US assistance in developing a nuclear power industry and less restrictions on arms sales to the kingdom. Many see the Chinese-brokered deal with Iran as further pressure by Riyadh on both the United States and Israel.

Some Israeli media have also reported that Saudis want Israel’s help in securing their demands from Washington.

Saudis have long said that formal diplomatic relations with Israel depend on a peaceful resolution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, though the two have been conducting business and security cooperation behind closed doors for some time. Saudi also opened its air space to Israel, in the wake of the Accords, signed in 2020.