JCPOA at an Impasse, Economy in Recession, Government Engaged in Marginalization

Statements made by Hassan Rouhani on Saturday have attracted the attention of several newspapers, including Shargh, which published a photo of the Islamic Republic's president during a speech at the Tehran University academic year opening ceremony, quoting him as saying: "One faction is always encouraged, and one faction is always punished." According to this newspaper, Hassan Rouhani also referred to the role of former president Mohammad Khatami in the elections and the 'repetition' of him for the elections of lists and candidates supported by the reformist faction, mentioning new restrictions imposed against him without naming him, and said: "We must abandon this path; we have experienced it several times, once in 2013, again in 2015, and twice in 2017; we must learn from experience, let there be free competition in society, in economics, science, and management, monopoly is dangerous, let us allow free competition and encourage everyone to criticize and participate, anyone who criticizes should be encouraged." Etemad newspaper also published these remarks under the headline "I Don't Know Why" and reported that Hassan Rouhani raised criticisms about some recent events, stating that "these new restrictions against the reformist president" and "where he questions as an opponent of this decision: If someone repeats that people should come to the polls, should they be punished?" This newspaper also noted that Hassan Rouhani "continued his protest against the summons of certain individuals from a specific faction" and said: "Perhaps some agencies are idle, they have to summon some people every now and then. One faction has been made to have a shorter wall since the beginning of the revolution." Mohammad Kianoush Rad, a reformist political activist, wrote in a note in Etemad newspaper titled "Rouhani's Powers to Remove Political Restrictions" that "Mr. Rouhani's stance regarding restrictions on the reformist president is correct, intelligent, and based on the realities that today exist in Iran's political society," emphasizing that "the separation of powers in the Islamic Republic has also been emphasized and thus Mr. Rouhani, as the head of the executive branch, has a responsibility within his powers to express his views. Of course, in the powers of the president, which is emphasized as the second person in the country by the Constitution, the responsibility for enforcing the Constitution is also considered for the president in addition to the status of the executive branch." The writer of this note emphasized that "those who seek to impose restrictions on political activists should know that in Iranian society, imposing such restrictions will yield no result other than defeating their purpose," stating: "Those who create restrictions for great personalities like Mr. Khatami aim to limit the influence and impact of this political figure, but in practice, the more restrictions and constraints there are, the more his popularity and public attention will increase." The Bahar newspaper, on its front page titled "From Words to Action," posed the question, "Is the dignity of the president merely appearing as a critic?" stating: "What President Rouhani says at the podium, the Charter of Citizens' Rights, Rouhani's occasional allusions to parts of the power structure, and so on, are all beautiful words, some of which even exceed the expectations of reformist leaders from Rouhani, but the problem is that a significant portion of them has not reached the stage of execution." This newspaper pointed out that on Saturday, the audience of Hassan Rouhani's remarks was "naturally pleased that someone in the position of president spoke positively of the 'repetitions' (of Mohammad Khatami) and hoped that if no voice comes from the representatives of the people in the parliament, at least the government and its senior officials express their complaints sometimes explicitly and sometimes implicitly," noting that "the next step of this satisfaction and joy will be the question of why the gap between expressing and implementing the beautiful words of government officials on issues such as political freedoms, citizens' rights, media openness, etc., is so wide? Is more than four years since the moderates took their seats in the executive branch not enough to reduce this gap?" The Bahar newspaper also raised the question of what Hassan Rouhani's explicit opinion is, as the head of the Supreme National Security Council, and Ali Shamkhani in his position as the secretary of this council regarding the resolution to increase restrictions on Mohammad Khatami, asking: "Does Rouhani, in his position in this council, not have the ability to prevent the implementation of such decisions?" and whether "the responsibility for enforcing the Constitution, which according to this national covenant rests with the president, does not impose an obligation on Rouhani in such matters?" Kayhan reacted to Hassan Rouhani's remarks on Saturday with the headline: "JCPOA at an Impasse, Economy in Recession, Government Engaged in Marginalization." This newspaper emphasized: "Experience has shown that whenever the government faces problems due to negligence and shortcomings, the president enters the field and raises one or two important and controversial issues, creating a wave in the country and in the media supporting him, and consequently in part of public opinion, to divert attention from the main issues." Kayhan, while publishing a photo of Hassan Rouhani awarding a medal to Abdolrasoul Daryaei Isfahani, an advisor to the Iranian nuclear negotiation team who is currently detained and sentenced to prison, wrote: "Perhaps the arrest of Mehdi Jahangiri, perhaps the conviction last week of five senior figures of the disbanded Participation Party, perhaps the investigation and pursuit of Hossein Fereydoun's case, perhaps the issuance of the first sentence for a spy from the nuclear team and the possibility of addressing the cases of other spies, perhaps the chaotic situation of the JCPOA and Trump's daily bravado, etc., have created the context for the production and delivery of the latest political margins." Hossein Shariatmadari, the representative of the Supreme Leader in Kayhan newspaper, also simultaneously accused Hassan Rouhani of "distorting" and wrote: "Mr. Rouhani considers the arrest of spies and economic offenders as a sign of the judiciary's idleness! and says, 'Now, of course, perhaps some agencies are idle and must have a job - and for this reason - they have to summon some people!' and of course, he implicitly admits that his concern arises from the fact that the arrested spies and economic offenders are connected to and close to the president or the presidency, and while they have so far delivered nothing but a handful of meaningless generalities to the nation, such as 'the great victory' and 'the miracle of the century' and 'the submission of great powers to Iran,' they have not been able to achieve even one tangible and acceptable result for it, and with an attitude that seems to intend to show humility, he states: 'We have deceived the Americans.' The Javan newspaper, close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, published the "Statement of the Center for Protection and Information of the Judiciary" regarding the accusations of some media against the son of Sadegh Larijani, the head of the judiciary, stating: "Following the publication of some baseless rumors in cyberspace and attributing these false claims to the senior officials of the judiciary, the Center for Protection and Information of the Judiciary issued a statement rejecting the rumors and the forged, clumsy, and false letters attributed to this center, announcing that the alleged documents are one hundred percent false and baseless, and the signs of their falsehood are evident from the very appearance of the letters." The Khorasan newspaper also quoted the "Statement of the Center for Protection and Information of the Judiciary," describing the attribution of espionage charges to the son of Sadegh Larijani as "the floundering of the fleeing anti-revolutionaries and desperate rioters." The Iran newspaper reported that "specialized investigations to uncover the mystery of the mysterious death of one of the female students of the University of Medical Sciences of Shahrekord are on the agenda of the forensic medicine department." According to this newspaper, "On Friday evening, two female medical students in the Baharestan dormitory of Shahrekord experienced an incident. One of the girls was rescued with the help of several students, but a ninth-semester student died after being transferred to Ayatollah Kashani Hospital due to her critical condition." The Iran newspaper wrote: "Several students informed the investigative team that they had smelled gas in the 2nd and 3rd floors of the dormitory for some time and even informed the dormitory manager, but Ali Derakhshan, the head of the public relations management of the University of Medical Sciences and Health Services of Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari, responded to these statements by saying: 'Ms. Zahra Ghasemi, one of the medical students, suffered cardiac and respiratory arrest in the Baharestan dormitory of the University of Medical Sciences of Shahrekord on Friday evening and despite resuscitation efforts at the hospital, unfortunately, she lost her life.' This university official also stated: 'Contrary to the statements of some students that she suffered from gas poisoning, it should be noted that the facilities of this dormitory do not have gas piping, and the heating system is radiator-based. However, investigations have begun, and the results will be announced after the forensic opinion.' The Shargh newspaper reported with the headline 'Trade with Iraqi Kurds Prohibited' that 'large trucks are lined up at the border. Big trucks loaded with oil, detergents, rice, and flour, or anything that can be sold at the destination. It does not matter whether the border is Bashmaq, Parviz Khan, Tamarchin, or Gorbolagh, and... tired drivers wait for hours and days, moving forward only a quarter of a car's length every fifteen minutes until it is finally their turn to cross the border; however, now the Iraqi Foreign Ministry has requested that Iran and Turkey stop all their commercial transactions with the Kurdistan region.' According to this newspaper, 'The request of the Iraqi government comes at a time when the Kurdistan region of Iraq has held an independence referendum, and this incident has disrupted all equations. Just a few days before the referendum was to be held, Iran and Turkey closed their common borders with the Kurdistan region, and yesterday the Twitter account of the Iraqi Foreign Ministry wrote that this border closure was carried out at the request of the Iraqi government.' In this context, 'Khatami's semi-blockade'; 'The prosecutor denied it'; 'Selfies of the criminals'; 'The injustice of unemployment'; 'Kameshian under the bulldozer blades'; changing the playing field of the proxies; war against the people in the streets of Iran; the first paragraph; the responsibility of the opponents and the possibility of radicalization of Iranian society; the death of the last Mossad representative in Tehran amid the Iran crisis; 1300 hours of internet outages; Vitkaf: a horrific massacre occurred during the protests in Iran; the death of the last Mossad representative in Tehran amid the Iran crisis; the accounts of three witnesses from the situation in Isfahan province; 'Like war-torn areas'; Trump emphasizes 'stopping executions in Iran': we don't know what will happen in the future; Trump says if the Islamic Republic tries to assassinate him, 'it will be wiped off the face of the earth.'