Hardliner 'New York Gang' fueling Iran's isolation, centrist daily says

According to the Tasnim news website, affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard, the bank will inject 1.5 billion UAE dirhams and 300 million US dollars in cash into Tehran’s free exchange market.

The rial has depreciated by over 25% since September, driven by regional conflicts and Iran’s setbacks in Syria and Lebanon. On Thursday, the rial traded at nearly 770,000 per US dollar, a sharp drop from around 600,000 in September.

Since the establishment of the Islamic government in 1979, the Iranian currency has experienced an 11,000-fold decline in value.

“The representatives of the nation have summoned the minister of economy to parliament with questions, and if necessary, they will initiate impeachment proceedings,” Goudarzi said.

The Iranian rial plummeted to a historic low against the US dollar on Wednesday, trading at over 780,000 rials per dollar. The Iranian currency has lost about 50% of its value in less than a year.

A notable shock to the currency market occurred on November 6, when the dollar surged past 700,000 rials following news of Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election. However, the currency’s decline had already begun in September, triggered by severe setbacks inflicted by Israel on Iran's key regional proxy, Hezbollah, and an Israeli airstrike that destroyed much of Iran's air defenses.

For months, the law imposing heavy fines and even prison sentences on women violating hijab regulations has sparked division among the public and even Islamic government politicians. During his election campaign, President Masoud Pezeshkian pledged to prevent the harsh treatment of women for hijab.

In response to a question from the semi-official Mehr News Agency Wednesday regarding the government’s actions concerning the Hijab and Chastity Law, which has been referred to the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), Pezeshkian’s parliamentary deputy, Shahram Dabiri, told reporters that the government has so far requested the law “not to be promulgated, allowing for a decision to be made on it in the future.”

Dabiri added that Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf has urged the administration to propose an amendment bill, but whether such a bill will be submitted to the Parliament has yet to be decided.

The President heads the Security Council, but all its decisions require the Supreme Leader’s signature to come into effect.

Khamenei delivered a speech to a group of women Tuesday on the occasion of the birthday of the Prophet Mohammed’s daughter, Fatima, but quite uncharacteristically he did not make any reference to the new hijab law or the issue of hijab in general.

In a speech in April 2023, Khamenei asserted that flouting hijab was “religiously and politically haram (forbidden)”. He claimed that foreign intelligence services were encouraging Iranian women to disobey the mandatory hijab.

He also claimed that “the enemy” was working according to “a plan and plot” and urged authorities to have their own plan for dealing with the issue of women’s unveiling.

His statement at the time was widely interpreted as a directive to authorities to take whatever measures necessary to reassert control over women's appearance in public, a control that had diminished in the wake of the Woman, Life, Freedom protests.

A day after the speech, Ghalibaf said Khamenei's order was clear and promised to give precedence to any hijab-related motion or bill, and the police and other authorities including Tehran Metro security increased their pressure on women and businesses such as shops, restaurants, cafes to enforce hijab rules.

In recent days, several lawmakers, including Deputy Speaker Ali Nikzad, have confirmed that the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) has decided to put the hijab law on hold for now. Speaking to the Khabar Online news website on Saturday, Nikzad admitted he was unsure how long the suspension of the law’s implementation would last.

Akbar Rajbarzadeh, another lawmaker, told Khabar Online that the SNSC's decision had to be obeyed because the Council is the highest decision-making body in national security matters.

“The Supreme National Security Council’s preclusion of the promulgation of a controversial law is almost unprecedented, or at least [such an incident] had never been given wide coverage by the media,” the conservative Khabar Online wrote Sunday.

It seems that with the SNSC’s interference, the public and the media will no longer be preoccupied with the controversial law, the conservative Tabnak on Sunday wrote. The step taken by the SNSC would help “the country’s stability and security given the extraordinary sensitivity of the regional and international situations.”

The SNSC consists of two representatives of the Supreme Leader, the heads of the three forces of the government, ministers of interior, intelligence, and foreign affairs, the chief of armed forces’ staff, the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), and the regular Army commanders, and the head of the Planning and Budget Organization.

Khandan was arrested on Friday after Iranian security forces raided his home. His daughter, Mehraveh Khandan, revealed in an Instagram post that her father was detained at his residence. The reason for his arrest has not been disclosed.

In its statement, the ECBA said Wednesday, “We call for an end to the judicial harassment of Reza Khandan and Nasrin Sotoudeh, in line with the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders and the UN Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers.”

Khandan has been arrested in the past for his activism and his support of his wife’s campaign against Iran’s mandatory hijab laws.

"The Quran regards hijab as a means to ensure the safety of women, but unfortunately, some people view the issue of hijab as a tool for coercion," Rouhani said on Wednesday.

This comes as the Islamic Republic has officially postponed the implementation of the controversial hijab law, which imposes severe penalties on women and girls who defy veiling requirements, following significant backlash from both the public and the international community.

Iran's Supreme National Security Council, in a letter to the parliament on Saturday, requested that the process of implementing the Hijab and Chastity law be halted. A member of the Parliament's presiding board stated that the government intends to submit an amended bill to the parliament for further consideration.