Gathering of Seminars in Qom Against Hassan Rouhani's Government

In a gathering held on Thursday, August 25, in protest against "economic corruption" in Qom, several attendees shouted anti-government slogans and held threatening signs against Hassan Rouhani. According to Tasnim News Agency, this gathering on the topic of "demanding economic justice" took place at the Feyziyeh School in Qom, where participants criticized the country's economic situation and chanted slogans about "punishing economic corruptors." The Shafaqna website, which covers news from the Qom seminary, published images from this gathering, including speeches by Hossein Tayebifar, commander of the special clerical brigade known as "Imam Sadiq Brigade," and Hassan Rahimpour Azghadi, a member of the Supreme Cultural Revolution Council. The images from Shafaqna also show written slogans from attendees, including "Four years is not a short time," "Six years of negotiations yielded no results," "Return, JCPOA supporters/submit to the leader," and "Corrupt elements must face the harshest punishments." Meanwhile, an image of a slogan at the event that implicitly threatened Hassan Rouhani with the fate of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani gained widespread attention on social media. The slogan read: "O you who made negotiation your slogan/ the Farah pool awaits you." Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, head of the Expediency Discernment Council, suffered a heart attack while swimming in the pool on January 8, 2017, and passed away. The Koshk pool, belonging to the Expediency Discernment Council, was built after the 1979 revolution, but Saeed Qasemi, a commander of the Revolutionary Guards who was a strong critic of Rafsanjani, was the first to refer to this pool as "Farah's pool," and this name has since been repeated in the media of Iranian conservatives. Nationwide protests against economic problems began in December of last year in Iran and quickly raised political demands, with slogans against the Islamic Republic and its leader being chanted. These protests were repeated a few weeks ago in several cities, with protesters chanting similar slogans against the religious government in Iran. Recently, especially after a speech by Ali Khamenei, the leader of the Islamic Republic, regarding the "grievances of the people," several Iranian conservatives have held speeches and gatherings against the policies of Hassan Rouhani's government. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the former president of Iran, also called for the resignation of Hassan Rouhani and the heads of the other two branches of government in a video, but the leader of the Islamic Republic warned in his speech that "those who say the government should be dismissed are playing a role in the enemy's plan." Five years ago, Reuters published an investigative report indicating that Ayatollah Khamenei controls an organization called the "Executive Headquarters of Imam's Command," which is estimated to have assets of "over $95 billion." According to Reuters, "the control of this vast economic empire is in the hands of one person, namely Ayatollah Khamenei," and this wealth "even surpasses the wealth accumulated by the former Shah of Iran." Mike Pompeo, the U.S. Secretary of State, also recently stated that the Islamic Republic regime resembles a "mafia" more than a government, and senior Iranian officials, including the leader and the head of the judiciary, are "accumulating wealth instead of serving citizens and are spending Iran's resources on the IRGC or supporting Hezbollah in Lebanon and Bashar al-Assad's government." Some officials of the Islamic Republic, including Ahmad Tavakoli, a former member of parliament, have also warned about "systematic corruption" in Iran, stating that "the institutions responsible for combating corruption have themselves become afflicted by various degrees of corruption."