Detained and Expelled Members of the Fifth Council

There are no statistics available regarding the number of members from the eight dissolved councils and the 283 members expelled from various periods of the Islamic councils of cities and villages who were arrested and tried before their expulsion, nor the reasons for their arrests. A significant number of winners of the fifth term of the Islamic councils of cities and villages, which began their activities in September 2017, have faced financial, ethical, political, and social charges and have been arrested. Currently, only one comprehensive statistic regarding the expelled council members in Iran has been published, sourced from Salman Samani, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Interior. On September 11, 2018, following the escalation of the scandal involving five members of the Babolsar City Council in Mazandaran province, Samani announced the expulsion of 283 members from the councils of cities and villages. This Ministry of Interior official did not mention the reasons, charges, or issues leading to the expulsion of these individuals, nor did he specify which period or periods of council activities these dismissals pertained to. The official activities of the fifth term of the Islamic councils of cities and villages began in September 2017, and in this past year, numerous reports and news have emerged regarding the arrests of some members of these councils. In the past year, over 30 members of the fifth term councils have been expelled for various reasons, and in some cases, judicial sentences have been issued against some of them. During this time, four mayors and 17 municipal employees across Iran have been arrested and imprisoned on various charges. The most recent of these arrests involves Mahdi Hajati, a member of the Shiraz City Council, who was reportedly arrested last Friday on charges of supporting the Baha'i faith by security agents. Hajati had tweeted on October 24 that his efforts to secure the release of two Baha'is detained in Shiraz had been unsuccessful, which apparently led to his arrest. On September 21 of this year, the judiciary of Khorasan Razavi reported the arrest of a member of the Nishapur City Council following 'insulting sacred matters and mourning rituals.' This arrested council member had posted something about mourning rituals in Iran on Instagram on September 16, which led to his detention. Alongside these two arrests related to religious issues, the most controversial arrest in the history of the fifth council term so far pertains to the moral scandal involving five members of the Babolsar City Council. This scandal peaked in the third week of September 2018 with the announcement of their arrest, during which it was reported that three members of the Babolsar City Council had paid bribes or hush money ranging from 370 million to 1.2 billion tomans to prevent the release of a video of their relationship with a woman. Financial and economic issues are the primary reasons for the arrests of the remaining members of the fifth term councils in various cities and villages across Iran. On September 16 of this year, the public prosecutor of Shush County reported the arrest of two members of the council of one of the villages in the central part of this county on charges of financial corruption. On September 24, news was published in some media outlets indicating the arrest of eight members of councils from various counties in Tehran province. On July 30, news of the arrest of four members of the Parand City Council was published, with 'embezzlement' being cited as the main reason for this arrest. On June 9, 2018, the news agency 'Mizan' reported that the mayor and six members of the Marvdasht City Council in Fars province had been arrested on charges of illegal activities. Amir Shahla, a reformist member of the Mashhad City Council, was also among those arrested in March 2018 on charges of attending a mixed-gender party, and his case was controversial for a long time. However, the first signal of arrests in the fifth term councils came from 'Nazareabad' in Alborz province. Less than a month after the establishment of this council, it was reported that three council members and the mayor of Nazareabad were arrested on charges of 'receiving bribes for appointing a specific individual to the mayoralty.' This chain of arrests continued to Marvdasht in Fars province, where six out of seven council members, along with the mayor, were arrested, effectively dissolving the Marvdasht City Council. Other links in this chain were completed in the provinces of Sistan and Baluchestan, Ilam, and Tehran, leading to over 30 council members being arrested or expelled in the past year. The number of arrests and expulsions is likely higher than this figure, and this wave has also reached several villages in Iran. With about three years remaining in the fifth term of the Islamic councils of cities and villages, it is unclear how many more arrests and expulsions will occur in the coming years.