Hezbollah Calls for Harsh Punishment for Saeed Toosi and Trial of His Supporters

Hosseini Allahkaram, the Secretary of the Coordination Council of Hezbollah Iran, called for the "harshest punishment" for Saeed Toosi, a Quran reciter accused of sexual assault, and for the trial of his supporters. He reported that following the publication of reports about this case, the attendance of teenagers in Quran classes has decreased. According to the website Entekhab, the Secretary of the Coordination Council of Hezbollah stated in a statement on his Instagram page that Saeed Toosi was acquitted in this case regarding allegations of "sexual relations" with a teenage Quran reciter during a trip to Turkey. According to Allahkaram, after complaints from the families of several other teenage Quran reciters, another case was formed based on "three charges of commission, establishing a house of corruption, and inviting to prostitution," in which Saeed Toosi was acquitted of the first two charges and sentenced to four years in prison for the third charge. Allahkaram announced that this case is "currently being pursued in the stages of appeal and...". The Secretary of the Hezbollah Coordination Council urged the prosecutor to, as the public prosecutor, "in addition to requesting the harshest punishment for Toosi, file another case against his supporters in defense of the school of Islam and the Quran." He also asked the prosecutor to prosecute anyone in the Supreme Council of the Quran or any organization, including state media, the parliament, etc., who supported Toosi knowing about his case, "for undermining the school of Islam and the Quran." According to Allahkaram, after reports about this case were published, Quran classes in neighborhoods and mosques faced a "decrease in teenage attendance," and parents are "preventing" their children from attending these classes. Based on the statements of Saeed Toosi's accusers, this famous Quran reciter has been pursued under accusations such as "sexual assault" following complaints from the families of several teenage Quran reciters, but ultimately, with the intervention of "Ali Moghadam, the communications officer of the Supreme Leader's office," the "head of the judiciary," and the "Tehran prosecutor," a decision to dismiss the case was issued for him. According to these reports, Abbas Jafari Dolat Abadi, the public and revolutionary prosecutor of Tehran, sent this case to the head of the judiciary for resolution, and Sadeq Larijani, after Ali Khalafi's comments, deemed this case "lacking evidential proof of crime." In this context, the head of the judiciary on November 3 described the closure of this case by himself as a "big and strange lie" and "pure falsehood" and threatened the accusers of this case that "cooperating with hostile media is complicity in crime and is prosecutable." Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, the spokesman for the judiciary, also announced on November 2 that a decision to dismiss the case against Saeed Toosi regarding the charge of "immoral acts" had been issued. According to Mohseni Ejei, regarding another charge against this famous reciter titled "encouraging corruption," a decision to dismiss was initially issued, but the court overturned this decision. Saeed Toosi is a well-known Quran reciter in Iran who has performed for the Supreme Leader and at government events such as the opening of the Islamic Consultative Assembly. On October 20, he rejected these accusations, stating that opponents of the Islamic Republic have made him a "proxy for insults" against the leader of Iran. Meanwhile, Allahkaram stated in his statement that "the enemy seeks to undermine Islam and reduce the popularity of the leadership by linking this issue to the office of the leadership." Previously, the newspaper Javan, close to the Revolutionary Guards, had stated that if Toosi's "deviation" is proven, he "must be punished" and that "we must be prepared for anything from acquittal to execution regarding him."