Mahmoud Sadeghi's Arrest Warrant Becomes Newsworthy

Mahmoud Sadeghi, the representative of Tehran, stated to the newspaper Etemad: "What was announced to me in the mobile arrest warrant was the publication of falsehoods and insult with the intent to disturb public minds, and it was not clarified what the subject was. If there is a private complainant, it has not been communicated to me." The Tehran representative emphasized that "so far, no complaint has been officially and legally communicated to me," adding: "The only complaint that was communicated to me was the one that was uncommonly presented to me in the form of an arrest warrant on Sunday night without specifying who my complainant is. It was only informally indicated to me regarding scholarships that I should go and defend myself. They also said they would take this defense informally. I went and provided my explanations. There, I stated that my remarks about illegal scholarships do not pertain to all scholarship recipients. Many of them were unaware that this process was illegal. My discussion was about the violations committed by the officials of the Ministry of Science and therefore does not concern individuals." Etemad reported that the time of this unofficial summons regarding his statements about illegal scholarships in the previous government was "July" of this year and quoted him as saying: "After my statements, the investigator said it was good and placed a record and interrogation paper in front of me, saying to document and sign these. I said I would not do this because you have not yet communicated anything to me personally, I will not sign anything. My legal personality is important, and I am a member of parliament, and the legal process must be followed." However, "since that date until now, no such complaint has been communicated to me through the parliament." The newspaper Etemad simultaneously reported on the behind-the-scenes efforts and political contacts on Sunday night to cancel Mahmoud Sadeghi's arrest warrant, stating: "Sunday night calls changed the fate of an arrest." The newspaper noted that on Sunday evening, when Mahmoud Sadeghi was returning home on North Kargar Street, judicial officers intended to arrest him with a "mobile arrest warrant," but after Sadeghi resisted and entered his home, "around 11:30 PM, the news quickly spread on social media," and "Ali Motahari, who was speaking at the ceremony on the night of 28 Safar at the Ashaq al-A'imah party, while complaining about Sadeghi's summons, also referred to the efforts to arrest him. Some from that ceremony headed towards Sadeghi's home, about 60 people, some of whom were journalists and some political activists." The newspaper Etemad also referred to the presence of Tehran representatives Farid Mousavi and Mohammad Javad Fathi at Sadeghi's home, stating that at 1 AM, the apartment opened, and these Tehran representatives, along with Ali Sadeghi, Mahmoud Sadeghi's brother and lawyer, came out to the people, and "Ali Sadeghi said his brother invited everyone to remain calm and believes that if there is a complaint and misunderstanding, it should follow its legal channels" and then reminded that "Mahmoud Sadeghi himself is a war veteran and the son of a martyr who has shed blood for the establishment of the Islamic Republic and is obedient to the leadership." The newspaper also quoted Ali Motahari as saying: "We are witnessing that a representative criticizes the judiciary, and immediately a complaint is filed against him, while this person has only asked for an explanation about a subject, but this behavior shows that we have distanced ourselves from the method of the Prophet of Islam." Sharq newspaper in its front page titled "Stop of the Arrest of the Tehran Representative" wrote: "The summons from the prosecutor's office for Mahmoud Sadeghi led to an event that on Sunday evening, while the parliament and media were closed, turned a low-news day into a hot and different night." This newspaper noted that on Tuesday, Mahmoud Sadeghi announced that following the intervention of the Speaker of the Parliament, the matter of his arrest had ended, but Fars and Tasnim reported that according to an informed source, his arrest warrant still stands. Mahmoud Sadeghi emphasized that "the arrest warrant has been canceled" and that "the matter is to be pursued legally with notification to the parliament according to the opinion of the Supervisory Board on the Conduct of Representatives," telling Sharq that "this issue was confirmed after Ali Larijani's negotiations with judicial officials" and was communicated to him through Ali Motahari. The newspaper Iran described Mahmoud Sadeghi's arrest warrant as "newsworthy" and wrote: "The presence of judicial officers in front of Mahmoud Sadeghi's house to execute his arrest warrant did not succeed but had many repercussions," while Mohammad Javad Fathi emphasized that "after the presence of officers in front of the Tehran representative's house, Mohammad Reza Aref, Ali Larijani, and Ali Motahari repeatedly negotiated with judicial officials and emphasized the contradiction of this warrant with legal standards." The newspaper Kayhan referred to Mahmoud Sadeghi as "the lawyer of the state" and, referring to what it called "the marginalization of the law-breaking state lawyer," wrote that the Tehran representative in the tenth parliament was summoned to the prosecutor's office due to "private complaints and was issued an arrest warrant due to four months of non-compliance with the law and failure to appear in court." The newspaper Arman was one of the few newspapers to publish the news of the prison sentence and the stripping of clothing from the special court for clerics for Ahmad Montazeri, featuring a photo of the eldest son of the Ayatollah on its front page. According to this newspaper, after the release of the audio file of Ayatollah Montazeri's objections to the executions of 1988, Ahmad Montazeri was summoned to court and provided a defense, and on Sunday, the special prosecutor's office of Qom communicated the court's ruling to him, which stated that "based on this ruling, Ahmad Montazeri was sentenced to ten years of imprisonment for actions against national security and ten years of imprisonment for publishing a classified audio file and one year of imprisonment for propaganda against the regime, totaling 21 years of imprisonment," but the ruling stated that "considering the value and sanctity of his martyr brother's blood and given his age and special circumstances and lack of a criminal record, with the average of the minimum and maximum penalties specified, only six years of the sentences will be executed," while his "stripping of clothing" ruling is also "suspended for three years." The newspaper Shahrvand reported on the "dollar's surge," stating: "On Tuesday, the dollar exceeded 3,800 tomans," and now, just as the Iranian market has been semi-closed this week, "the rate of American green bills is being exchanged without interruption, setting new records." According to this newspaper, "the instability of the dollar's price occurs while the excitement has returned to Istanbul Square in Tehran, and currency exchange offices have erased the dollar prices from their boards, and brokers have started hot transactions on the paved sidewalks of the area," but regarding why the dollar has surged again, various comments have been made "from the excitement of the New Year's travel market to the ambiguity of Donald Trump for Iranians to the issue of single-rate currency and the government's budget deficit." Hadi Haqshenas, an economist and financial market expert, however, rejected all these reasons, telling Shahrvand: "The dollar price has been artificially kept low in previous years, and now with the decrease in foreign exchange revenues, it seems that the dollar price spring has been released." The newspaper Jahan Sanat also wrote: "The US dollar, continuing its upward trend in recent days and weeks, has also crossed the 3,800 toman mark at the beginning of this week, marking the highest rate this year." This newspaper named the "government" as the main player in the dollar price increase and quoted economic expert Hossein Doroudian as saying: "Although the government is determined to implement the single exchange rate policy, it should also be noted that the greater the gap between the government exchange rate and the free market rate, the harder it becomes to implement the single exchange rate policy, and its process becomes problematic since the unification of the exchange rate requires that the exchange rate applied in the market be equal to the exchange rate applied in the exchange rate system." The newspaper Vatan-e-Emruz published a photo of the Minister of Roads and Urban Development on its front page, describing Abbas Akhoundi as "the Minister of Roads or the Minister of Sigh" and wrote: "Investigating the cause of the tragic accident of two trains in Semnan has revealed that the reason for this disaster, in addition to the flawed automatic railway system, was the complete negligence of the officials."