From the Rumor of 'Arrest of Hassan Rouhani's Brother' to the Confrontation Between Aref and Larijani

The newspaper Shargh reported on its front page the 'denial of the news about the arrest of the President's brother' and wrote: 'Media rumors regarding the arrest of Hossein Fereydoun, the President's brother, were denied from both sides; both the government and the judiciary.' An informed source in the Presidential Office stated in an interview with Shargh that 'the claim of Hossein Fereydoun's arrest is unfounded.' At the same time, Shargh reported that Mohammad Jafar Montazeri, the Attorney General of the country, also rejected the topic of 'the arrest of one of the officials of the Presidential Office' and said: 'After the publication of these materials, the issue was reviewed and it was determined that this claim is not true.' This newspaper identified the initial source of the news about the arrest of Hassan Rouhani's brother as the news agency 'Tasnim' and wrote: 'While this news agency claimed to have published the news of Hossein Fereydoun's arrest on foreign websites, at least in the last month, there has been no such news on foreign-language websites. Only the Al-Monitor website published a report last Friday titled 'Has the Iranian President sidelined his brother?' The newspaper Shargh also denied the publication of news regarding the Supreme Leader's order to impose restrictions on Hossein Fereydoun's activities in the government, citing Parviz Ismaili, the Deputy for Communications and Information at the Presidential Office, who stated: 'The fabrications and news forgery regarding the Supreme Leader's order to the President for changes in the government structure are completely false and are part of the hostile media's scenario to create a bipolarity and confrontation.' The newspaper Iran, in its front page on Tuesday, referring to the 'unveiling of the temporary board of the 10th Parliament,' wrote: 'Ali Larijani has become president again.' This newspaper also dedicated its front page photo to a view of the open session of the Parliament where Mohammad Reza Aref is seen congratulating Ali Larijani, and simultaneously quoted the head of the Hope faction as saying: 'I congratulated Mr. Larijani and will certainly help the President of the Parliament wherever necessary in advancing the work,' and 'the Hope faction will also adopt this friendly competition and cooperation with the other faction of the Parliament to solve the country's problems.' According to the newspaper Iran, on Sunday, during the elections for the temporary board of the 10th Parliament, 'another surprise occurred, and contrary to expectations in the competition between the two main factions of the Parliament, it was the principlist faction of Velayat that outpaced the Hope faction. The principlists secured 9 out of 12 seats on the board, leaving the Hope faction with only 3 seats,' while 'previous speculations and indeed documented reports indicated that the two factions had almost equal weight, and accordingly, it was clear that whichever faction could attract more independents would be more successful in the board elections.' This newspaper emphasized that 'the results of yesterday's voting in Baharestan show that the principlists and supporters of Ali Larijani were more successful in attracting independents, and the Hope faction not only failed in this regard but also some members of this faction preferred to maintain the previous Speaker of the 9th Parliament over Aref in the competition.' The newspaper Etemad highlighted the number '103,' which is the number of votes from the representatives of the 10th Parliament for Mohammad Reza Aref, and wrote: 'The committed and responsible vote of most members of the Hope faction for Aref became a guiding light for reformism in Parliament.' However, this newspaper also reported with the headline 'Don't forget' that 173 representatives voted for Ali Larijani to bring 'moderate principlism' to the presidency of the Parliament, and while Mohammad Reza Aref received 103 votes, during the election of the first vice president of the 10th Parliament, Masoud Pezeshkian managed to secure 154 votes, indicating that 'the real vote of the Hope faction is 154 votes,' while one elected member of the Hope list, namely Minou Khalighi, remains 'suspended.' Sasan Aghaei, in a note in the newspaper Etemad titled 'Interpreting that vote and this election,' posed the question 'Has the victory of the 7th of Esfand faded?' He referred to examples of the extremism of members of the 9th Parliament and also to the days when 'the news of the widespread disqualification of candidates rendered the tsunami of registration ineffective,' and wrote: 'In those days, a short-term answer was found to the question 'What do we want?'; we want to strengthen the current associated with Ayatollah Hashemi in the Assembly of Experts while simultaneously keeping the Parliament free of extremists.' He described these demands as 'the minimum demands' or 'a minimal perspective,' but emphasized that 'three months ago, the aspirations of the supporters participating in the elections and a significant part of the reformists were something more than this.' The author of the Etemad note also wrote that the interpretation of the victory of the 7th of Esfand as 'the victory of moderation' is still correct and in a significantly impactful way, because 'a significant part of the extremist current of the 9th Parliament has been purged, the political competition and even the naming have changed from the dichotomy of extremist principlists-moderate principlists to the competition of moderate principlists-moderate reformists.' 'Reformists, after six years of confidence, have found a specific candidate for one of the presidencies of the three powers of the country, and ultimately, the scope of the victory of the 7th of Esfand, the victory of Khordad 96 seems more accessible than ever,' and although 'the achievements do not seem stunning, this is a small step in the history of a country and a significant leap to overcome the trap of extremism.' Sadegh Ziba Kalam also wrote in a note in the newspaper Arman that 'the result of the board elections was not surprising; even if Aref received less than 100 votes, such an expectation still existed, and this number of votes was more than expected.' He wrote: 'What has caused the self-aggrandizement of reformists was the number of seats obtained by the Hope list, but the Hope list was formed from three currents.' The Arman note pointed out that in the Hope list 'there were reformists who entered with identification, but their identification was faded. The second group in the Hope list were moderate principlists who, due to the absence of a reformist candidate, were asked by the people to vote for them, and the third group in the Hope list consisted of young educated individuals who entered the Parliament with the support of reformists,' and wrote: 'Certainly, the reformists did not expect that these individuals would turn into reformist representatives.' He emphasized that, on the contrary, it was clear that 'some individuals from the third group, if they enter the Parliament, will likely turn into the likes of Elaheh Rastgoo and will not come towards Aref because they know that power is in the hands of principlists and reformists have no share of power to grant them.' He stated: 'When we consider them moderate principlists, why should we expect them not to vote for Ali Larijani? While extremists in Qom attacked principlist Larijani and moderates of the principlist current oppose such behaviors.' Sadegh Ziba Kalam also wrote: 'From the beginning, we should not have believed in the shift of these individuals towards Mr. Aref, even though if 20 out of these 70 individuals turn into Ali Motahari, it shows that reformism has been able to invest well in individuals.' The newspaper Aftab Yazd, however, with the headline 'Burial of Ethics,' accused several representatives from the Hope list who abstained from voting for Mohammad Reza Aref of violating ethics and wrote: 'Mohammad Reza Aref could not become president with 103 votes. This is while 140 elected representatives of the Parliament signed the reformist covenant and entered the Parliament with the ticket of this current.' The newspaper Farhikhtegan, in its front page with the title 'Rouhani, the winner of the Parliament Board elections,' wrote: 'The elections of the board showed that the government was the winner of this election. Ali Larijani had previously helped Rouhani's government significantly in the approval of the JCPOA and now received the reward for it.' However, the newspapers close to the principlists expressed satisfaction with the results of the voting for the Parliament board and mostly attacked the reformists for declaring victory in the days following the elections of the 7th of Esfand, including the newspaper Kayhan, which wrote in its front page: 'The achievement of 'Hope' in Baharestan is almost nothing.' This newspaper, which had previously used a similar headline for the achievements of the JCPOA, wrote this time: 'While the reformists claimed a decisive victory in the elections and strongly supported Aref's presidency, their candidate lost the presidency of the 10th Parliament to Ali Larijani by a significant margin.' Kayhan also wrote: 'Ali Larijani's victory over Mohammad Reza Aref in the Islamic Consultative Assembly followed the election of Ayatollah Jannati to the presidency of the Assembly of Experts, providing a great lesson that politics has various dimensions that cannot be shaped solely in favor of one side through media uproar and lying.' This same newspaper wrote in another note: 'The illusion of the reformists' victory in the elections of the Parliament and the Assembly of Experts is due to the belief that Tehran is all of Iran.' The newspaper Javan, close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, also emphasized in its front page that 'the bubble of the reformist majority has burst,' writing: 'On Sunday, the fabricated bubble of the victory of the Hope list in the two elections of the Parliament and the Assembly of Experts in the Parliament section also burst, and with the election of Ali Larijani to the presidency of the 10th Parliament, it was once again proven that deceiving public opinion through statistical manipulation and lying is the main tactic of the reformist current in recent months, and their priorities are party and factional goals, not public concerns.' This newspaper emphasized that 'Aref's defeat in the elections of the Parliament board is a precursor to defeat in the presidential elections of Khordad 96 because with the failure of this current's exclusive candidate for the presidency of the Parliament, the expected transformation of the social base of this current has not been realized,' and 'the social base of this current has become disappointed and hopeless and will certainly not act in favor of this current's candidate as in the recent elections.' The newspaper Javan simultaneously, in a note titled 'The Measure of Reformism,' tried to depict the relationship between the leaders of the reformist faction and Mohammad Reza Aref as strained, writing: 'In the most optimistic scenario, Aref's function in the Parliament elections was that they were able to hide behind his popularity and pave their way back to power, but the events of Monday showed that the reformists, for the second time after the 92 elections, have passed over Dr. Aref.' The newspaper Vatan Emruz, close to the conservative front, also used the slogan of the reformists in the Parliament elections, namely 'the second step,' to criticize them and described Ali Larijani's rise to the presidency of the 10th Parliament as 'the repetition of the reformists' defeat this time in the elections of the Parliament board.' This newspaper also, in a note titled 'Defeat, I repeat,' wrote: 'The reformist current has deviated from many of its slogans, especially after 84, in changing its approaches. The slogan of passing over the establishment and passing over Khatami initially turned into a return to Khatami, then a return to Hashemi, Mousavi, and even Rouhani, and in the recent elections to a return to Ali Larijani, so that Larijani was present as a representative of the most right-wing political groups and some of his companions were present in the reformist list.' The newspaper Qanoon has a report with the title 'Workers are being punished,' about the execution of the 'whipping' sentence of several workers from the Agh Dareh gold mine, quoting Vahid Yari, the lawyer of these workers, who stated that a total of 17 workers from this mine were sentenced to whipping due to labor protests and at the complaint of the employer and the mine guard, and the whipping sentences against them have been executed. According to this newspaper, they were accused of 'preventing and hindering people from doing business by creating uproar and commotion,' 'insulting the guard,' 'illegally dressing and detaining the guard,' and 'deliberately damaging the company sign,' but Abdolsamad Khormashahi, a lawyer and jurist, told the Qanoon newspaper: 'The charges mentioned for the aforementioned workers, such as preventing individuals from doing business and other matters, seem somewhat far-fetched according to Article 618 of the Islamic Penal Code. Although we do not know the contents of the case, but assuming the subject is true, the objectives of the punishments and their impact on society should be given more attention. Certainly, these hardworking miners, who protested against the employer's performance for their livelihood, were only seeking to resolve their livelihood and work problems and nothing more.' This newspaper, referring to the fact that 'the resolution of disputes between workers and employers should be done in the dispute resolution authorities provided for in labor law in complete calm,' wrote: 'Given the sensitivities of public opinion in these cases, the government should issue a circular to the governors asking them to intervene in disputes between workers and employers before the judiciary gets involved and help resolve them peacefully.' The same newspaper reported on its front page the 'cancellation of the dispatch of pilgrims for the 95 Hajj' and described it as 'the epic of the self-willed,' writing: 'The day when the hardliners took selfies in front of the stormed Saudi embassy and boasted about their extremist behavior, they also prescribed the plan for next year's Hajj.' The newspaper Jahan San'at described Tehran as 'the utopia of the unemployed' in its headline, writing: 'The existence of a job market 26.5 times greater than other regions has made Tehran an attractive megacity for the unemployed, causing thousands to migrate to the capital in hopes of finding jobs.' According to this newspaper, a look at existing statistics about the labor market situation in the country, the distribution of job opportunities, the number of employed individuals in each region of the country, and also the size of provinces shows that Tehran alone currently has a workforce equal to the employed population of 13 provinces, and even 270,000 more.