Minister of Culture Acknowledges Government's Inability to Address Pressure Groups

In response to the attack by a group of "self-appointed" individuals on actress Fatemeh Motamed-Arya in Kashan, the Minister of Culture of the Islamic Republic on Friday, February 9, acknowledged the government's lack of "authority" and power to deal with these individuals while expressing support for the actress. Fatemeh Motamed-Arya, a well-known and beloved Iranian actress, traveled to Kashan on Sunday, January 24, to participate in a Q&A session for the film "Yahya Did Not Remain Silent." However, a few days before her trip, Fars News Agency, close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, published an inflammatory report calling for the cancellation of the event and predicted that the "reaction of cultural sympathizers" in Kashan to the presence of this female actress would be "unpredictable." Fars's prediction came true: a group referred to as self-appointed agents attempted to disrupt the Q&A session for the film "Yahya Did Not Remain Silent," directed by Kaveh Ebrahim-Pour, which was held with the presence of Fatemeh Motamed-Arya in Kashan's cinema. According to Mr. Ebrahim-Pour, the protesters were "shouting insults loudly" and "made a strong effort to enter the hall and disrupt the session, which did not happen thanks to the prudence of the police." The filmmaker stated that after the event, "two individuals climbed onto the roof of the car and intended to break the windows to enter the vehicle, but the police prevented them." Now, according to the Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA), the Minister of Culture in Hassan Rouhani's government acknowledged on Friday that "in some places, we no longer have control, and the intervening factors are influential and powerful, working with their backing." According to Ali Jannati, the Minister of Culture, "after all, not everything is in the government's hands" and "the government's resources are limited." Following the attack on Ms. Motamed-Arya in Kashan, the city's Friday Imam also came out in support of the attackers, describing the film critique session as a "gathering of amusement and play" and announced that he would declare a "public mourning" in protest against Ms. Motamed-Arya's presence in the city. The Imam's reaction to a film critique session confirms the Minister of Culture's statement that those often referred to as "self-appointed" have their own "influential and powerful" backing. On the same day, Ali Jannati also defended Salar Aghili, a traditional Iranian singer, who has come under pressure due to his appearance on the satellite network "Manoto." Mr. Jannati remarked that Salar Aghili is "not a political person" and in his interview with this satellite network, he "only spoke a few words about Iranian culture and art." This comes despite Mr. Jannati previously deeming Aghili's actions "unacceptable" after his appearance on the "Manoto" network and stating that "no artist should take such an action."