Continued Detention of the Whistleblower of the 'Judicial Corruption Gang' in the Judiciary

The statements and warnings from hardline conservative groups in Iran to the judiciary for the release of a detained Hezbollah activist who exposed a 'corruption gang' of several judges in the judiciary have so far been fruitless. Mansour Nazari, known as the 'poet of the defenders of the shrine' within Hezbollah, has been detained by the judiciary since October of last year and remains in prison. According to various statements from Hezbollah forces, Nazari discovered documents indicating the activities of a 'corruption gang' of judges in Shahrekord several years ago and submitted these documents to the Government Employees Prosecutor's Office. The initial investigation of these documents led to an indictment being issued against the members of this gang, but the indictment did not proceed. This situation prompted Mansour Nazari to submit his documents to Gholamhossein Mohseni Eje'i, the then Attorney General of the country. The office of the then Attorney General sent these documents to the judiciary in Shahrekord in the Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province for follow-up. However, the deputy of the Shahrekord judiciary filed a complaint against Nazari for 'interference in a non-issue,' a complaint that resulted in a one-year prison sentence and 74 lashes for this poet. In a video released in Bahman of last year on the 'Aparat' website, Nazari provided explanations about this case and spoke of the existence of 'widespread corruption' in the judiciary. He stated that in his investigations, he discovered a 'corruption gang' within the judiciary involved in 'land grabbing,' 'water grabbing,' 'drug trafficking,' 'arms trafficking,' and 'moral corruption,' and that the Ministry of Intelligence and the Parliament have been unable to confront them. He also explained that after the documents of this gang were sent by the prosecutor's office to the Shahrekord judiciary, the judges involved in this gang asked him not to pursue the case. According to Mansour Nazari, the investigator of the Government Employees Prosecutor's Office issued an 83-page indictment for the judges involved in this gang, which included 10 charges such as 'forgery of documents,' 'collusion to take someone else's property,' and 'collusion to change land use.' Nazari further mentioned the exile of the investigator of this case to the Administrative Justice Court and the dissolution of Branch 10 of the Government Employees Prosecutor's Office, stating that the judiciary ultimately issued a retirement order for one of the offending judges. Abdullah Mousavi, the head of the judiciary in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari, also provided explanations about this case and Nazari's statements in Bahman of last year, explicitly stating that Nazari had committed 'criminal acts' in this regard. Mousavi also stated that 'we have repeatedly declared mistakes in this case and we firmly believed that the rights of public property were not secured in this case.' He added that 'Nazari attributed matters to the former judicial deputy that were considered by the court as instances of spreading falsehoods and slander, and he was sentenced to prison and was on the run for a while until he was ultimately arrested and sent to prison.' According to Mousavi, 'Our perception was that this case was not significant enough to be publicized, and Nazari is not a hero of loyalty and justice-seeking.' These statements from this judicial official come at a time when several student organizations have published multiple statements to the judiciary officials since last year, demanding the release of Mansour Nazari and action against 'corruption' in this judiciary. In Azar of last year, several organizations affiliated with the Justice-Seeking Student Movement mentioned the 'infiltration of corruption in the judicial system' in a letter to Sadegh Larijani, the head of the judiciary, criticizing Nazari's detention. On 21 Esfand of last year, two unions of the Justice-Seeking Student Movement and the Office for Consolidation of Unity criticized the obstructions by the Shahrekord judiciary and the pressures on Mansour Nazari's family in this case in a letter to the head of the judiciary. These two organizations requested that until the completion of the re-examination of Mansour Nazari's case, this poet be transferred from Shahrekord prison to Tehran. They also requested that 'Mansour Nazari's case be clarified and publicly announced by the judiciary so that it can be judged by everyone and the judiciary can recognize him as a fighter against corruption.' On the first of Farvardin this year, a group of university activists criticized the issuance of 'heavy prison sentences' for 'justice-seekers' in a letter to Sadegh Larijani. The Islamic Association of Students of the Faculty of Law and Political Science at Tehran University also requested on the 10th of Farvardin that 'clarification and reconsideration be made regarding Nazari's case.' The statements, letters, and efforts of Hezbollah forces and 'justice-seeking' student movements in this regard have so far been fruitless, and this 'defender of the shrine' poet remains in prison. Saeed Zibakalam, a professor at Tehran University, recently wrote a sharp and unprecedented note in protest against the silence and indifference of the Hezbollah movement regarding Mansour Nazari's case and corruption in the Islamic Republic, likening them to 'the puppets of George Orwell's 1984.' Zibakalam wrote, 'Dear brothers and sisters, I swear to God that we do not deserve Mansour Nazari. We, the children of the revolution, have thought so much of relying on this and that and have positioned ourselves that our awareness and even our passion and honor have become military and directive.' This member of the faculty at Imam Sadiq University wrote that 'our entire identity has become guarding everything that government institutions and rulers say and do, and this means the end of identity.' This is not the first time that Hezbollah forces have reacted to the 'widespread and systematic' corruption in the Islamic Republic. Protests against corruption in the Islamic Republic were previously initiated by a group of clerics and seminary students in Iran, led by Alireza Jahanshahi, known as the 'Sirejani Seminary Student,' which resulted in a prison sentence for this protesting cleric. In the latest criticisms of this kind, a group of clerics and seminary students from Borujerd in Lorestan province have taken an unprecedented step, protesting against the 'corruption' of the Friday prayer leader of this city and other Friday prayer leaders in Iran by marching towards Tehran. In the statement of these protesters, Hassan Torabi, the Friday prayer leader of Borujerd, is explicitly referred to as an 'incompetent and unworthy' individual who has 'betrayed the people by trampling on values and promoting corruption and misery in Borujerd for years.' These protesting clerics also stated in their statement that 'many Friday prayer leaders in the country, like the current Friday prayer leader of Borujerd, have become agents of corruption and misery.' Several officials of the Islamic Republic, including Ali Larijani, the Speaker of Parliament, while denying the systematic nature of corruption in Iran, have acknowledged that in August 2015, Ahmad Jannati, the Secretary of the Guardian Council, explicitly criticized the spread of corruption in Iran's administrative structure, stating that currently 'disorder, lawlessness, and bribery are rampant in some administrative and judicial institutions.'