Ashna's Attack on the IRGC News Agency: Let Others Take the Credit for Securitying Demography

In response to a news report by the Fars news agency, close to the IRGC, regarding 'infiltration' in the 'population control sector', Hassan Rouhani's advisor on Tuesday sarcastically asked this news agency to be content with 'securitizing' the environmental sector. On Tuesday, December 6, Fars reported the arrest of several individuals in the 'population control sector' by one of the 'security agencies' and labeled them as 'infiltrators'. Hossein Ashna, advisor to Hassan Rouhani, accused this IRGC-affiliated news agency of moving on to another sector after having 'securitized' the environmental sector, which led to the arrest and imprisonment of several individuals. Fars wrote: 'It has been heard that one of the country's security agencies, in cooperation with the judiciary, has arrested and summoned several infiltrators in the population control sector.' According to Fars, a 'dual-national' individual with the initials 'M.B.', who had been active for a long time under the title of researcher, was arrested, and several other individuals have been summoned multiple times. This news agency added that these individuals, through their 'networked actions', under the guise of 'scientific activities', attempted to infiltrate various governmental bodies and obstruct the proper implementation of the general population policies of the regime. The news agency close to the IRGC further stated that these individuals were preventing the proper realization of the regime's general policies by infiltrating some institutions such as the Ministry of Science, Ministry of Health, Research Center of the Parliament, Budget and Planning Organization, Statistics Center, Strategic Studies Center of the Presidency, etc. This news agency's reference is to the change in the Islamic Republic's population control policies following Ayatollah Khamenei's directive, which was issued after the publication of statistics showing a decrease in Iran's young population and citizens' inclination towards childbearing. The population control policy in Iran had been promoted since 1989 with slogans like 'two children are enough' and 'better life, fewer children', and was even encouraged by clerics. However, Khamenei suddenly deemed the inclination towards fewer children as a 'malady' and posed the question at a conference on 'demographic changes and their role in various societal transformations' as to 'why women and men avoid having children in certain ways?' For the first time in 2013, the Supreme Leader called his previous stance on population control a mistake and subsequently issued a decree titled 'General Population Policies' to the three branches of government. Following this decree, the Islamic Republic's demographic approach changed to the point where childbearing was encouraged from all state platforms, and women who showed reluctance to have children due to work or education were criticized. In recent years, several hardline political figures have accused Hassan Rouhani's government of negligence in properly implementing the general population policies. For instance, Ahmad Hamzeh, a member of parliament, criticized some related organizations in 2017, stating that these agencies had not achieved much success in implementing the population policies mandated by the leader. In response to Fars' news about the arrest of several individuals on these charges, Hossein Ashna, head of the Strategic Studies Center of the Presidency and advisor to the President, likened this news agency to 'FATA police'. Ashna tweeted: 'We ask Fars, which is like FATA police monitoring everything, to allow the honor of securitizing demography to go to others. For you, the environmental sector is currently sufficient.' His reference is to the arrest of several Iranian environmental activists on charges of 'spying' for foreigners under the guise of environmental activities, four of whom were recently accused of 'corruption on earth'. Kavous Seyed-Emami, a professor at Imam Sadiq University and head of the Persian Wildlife Institute, was among the environmental activists arrested who died shortly after his arrest in prison.