Motahari's Reaction to Mahdi Khazali's Hunger Strike

Iranian newspaper reported on "Motahari's Reaction to Mahdi Khazali's Hunger Strike" and quoted this member of the Islamic Consultative Assembly as saying: "According to reports from Evin Prison, Dr. Mahdi Khazali's physical condition is very poor due to his hunger strike. Of course, some of the statements published by him are not endorsed by me, but his re-arrest as a punishment while he has served his six-year prison sentence and no new case has been sent to court for him seems illegal." According to this newspaper, Ali Motahari stated, "I ask the head of the judiciary to overlook his insults to themselves and issue an order for his release before a disaster occurs," adding that "the supervising prosecutor and the execution judge here have direct responsibility given that there is no punitive ruling." The newspaper Shargh reported on its front page about "the Minister of Interior's advice to Mohsen Hashemi" and wrote that during a meeting between the head of Tehran City Council and the Minister of Interior, Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli advised him to "appoint an interim mayor for Tehran." The newspaper wrote that after the election of Mohammad Ali Najafi by the members of the fifth term of the city council as the mayor of Tehran, while "unconfirmed reports say the new mayor of Tehran has been signed by the Minister of Interior," some "other scattered reports that council members are reluctant to comment on officially indicate that the approval of Najafi's mayoral decree is facing obstacles." Although council members have made every effort not to appoint an interim mayor for Tehran so that the elected mayor can take over the city's management as soon as possible. Meanwhile, the newspaper Khorasan emphasized that "Najafi's mayoral appointment is uncertain," stating: "Najafi's appointment as mayor, which the members of the city council had introduced as the final candidate with 21 decisive votes before officially starting their work in the 'Heaven Building,' and Najafi immediately began making changes and appointments within the municipality, even appointing Kasra Noori as the head of the Hamshahri Institute, has faced uncertainties." This newspaper pointed out that "the Ministry of Interior has not yet approved Najafi's mayoral decree," citing "unofficial sources" that reported "there are objections from a security agency regarding Mohammad Ali Najafi's appointment as mayor, and some of these sources claimed that the council has been informed that a new mayor must be chosen." The newspaper Khorasan reminded that "according to Chapter Three of the Council Law, city and village councils must introduce the elected mayor or village chief to the district or governorate for the issuance of a decree after their election, and according to the first note of this law, the Islamic City Council is obliged to immediately act to elect a qualified mayor after its official establishment, but the third note of this law emphasizes that the appointment of mayors in cities with a population of over two hundred thousand and provincial centers is based on the proposal of the city council and the decree of the Minister of Interior, and in other cities, it is based on the proposal of the city council and the decree of the governor. If the Minister of Interior or the governor does not consider the proposed mayor to meet the specified qualifications, they must inform the city council with reasons and documents. If the city council insists on its previous opinion and does not issue the mayor's decree, the matter will be referred by the city council to the relevant dispute resolution board." The newspaper Etemad reported that Elias Hazrati, who in addition to being a member of parliament is the managing director of this newspaper, on Saturday attended the Culture and Media Prosecutor's Office "for the umpteenth time in the past two weeks to follow up on the status of Sasan Aghaei, the deputy editor of Etemad newspaper, and also Ehsan Mazandarani, the former managing director of Farhikhtegan newspaper." This newspaper recalled that "Sasan Aghaei, the deputy editor of Etemad newspaper, was arrested on August 12 by security agents at his workplace and taken to Evin prison, and according to the head of the Tehran judiciary, his case is under investigation." According to Etemad, "Ehsan Mazandarani, the former managing director of Farhikhtegan newspaper and a jailed journalist, also suffered severe physical weakness in the past week, and his wife, in a letter expressing concern for his critical health condition, requested follow-up on his status." Therefore, Elias Hazrati sent a letter along with an attachment written by Mazandarani's wife to the head of the judiciary, requesting Sadegh Larijani to issue a legal investigation order in this matter. The newspaper Arman reported on a "Disaster Prevention Conference" held on Saturday with the Minister of Health in Tehran, where Hassan Ghazizadeh stated during his speech at the event: "Accidents and disasters are the most common cause of death in individuals under 40 years old" and "I admit that our automotive industry has problems and needs to be fixed; we must think about people's lives before their wallets. Even before employment issues, we must consider the health of the people. We talk about a national car, but alongside it, we have problems that lead to disabilities, although I must speak cautiously to avoid trouble." This newspaper pointed out that "natural disasters cause 10 trillion tomans in damages to the country every year," stating: "In addition to natural disasters that annually claim a significant number of Iranian citizens' lives, non-natural accidents such as traffic accidents lead to the deaths of over 15,000 Iranians each year," and although "in recent years, many efforts have been made to reduce traffic accidents, Iran remains one of the worst countries in terms of road accident victims." According to the newspaper Arman, Iraj Harirchi, the deputy minister of health, also stated at this conference: "Every half hour, one person dies due to traffic accidents in the country, and 20 times that number are injured," adding that "every year, seven percent of the national gross production, equivalent to about one-fifteenth of this production, which amounts to 32 billion dollars, is destroyed due to traffic accidents." Iraj Harirchi also mentioned that "in terms of traffic accidents, Iran ranks eighth in the world, with only six African countries and one Asian country having worse conditions than Iran," and although "in recent years, the number of deaths caused by accidents has slightly decreased from about 27,852 in 2005 to 15,932 in 2016, during this time, traffic accidents have dropped from the second leading cause of death among Iranians to the third, but the situation is still not satisfactory." The deputy minister of health also stated that "last year, we had about 50,000 ambulance dispatches for traffic accidents, of which about 12,600 missions were in cases where there were three to five fatalities. The relative decrease in the number of deaths caused by accidents has, however, been accompanied by an increase in the number of injured, with 768,000 people injured and hospitalized last year, and 1,189 billion tomans spent just on hospital bills for these individuals." The newspaper Shahre Vandi reported in a report about "the disarray of labor contracts" that "labor market activists believe that the establishment of a labor contract registration system will not achieve anything." According to this newspaper, "the labor contract system will be available from the first of October this year, which is less than a month away, while according to Olia Ali-Beygi, the head of the Supreme Council of Islamic Labor Councils, 93% of labor contracts in the labor community are temporary," as "powers are preventing the implementation of Circular No. 40 of the Labor Law, and therefore this circular has not been able to lift the shadow of temporary contracts from the labor community." The newspaper Shahre Vandi pointed out that "among 133 countries worldwide, fewer countries have labor contracts of less than two years, and even in some countries, a ceiling has been set for the number of such contracts, and no more than 20% of contracts should be temporary. However, in Iran, there are still a significant number of workers with 25 years of experience who have one-month contracts." Mohsen Izadkhah, a senior labor market expert, also told this newspaper that "the establishment of a job security and labor contract registration system" is a "symbolic" action, and "in a situation where officials of the Ministry of Labor have announced on a television program that over 90% of the workforce has temporary contracts, this means that labor contracts, in the true sense, do not exist." The newspaper Hamdeli reported in one of its main headlines that "Rahmatollah Hafizi tweeted a chilling sentence about the election of the president of the Medical System Organization on Saturday," quoting this former member of the Tehran City Council and current member of the Medical System Organization as saying: "During the election of the president of the Medical System Organization, I was told in a phone call that if you compete with Fazl (Iraj Fazl), you will be permanently removed from the management of the health system." Zahra Riazi, an advisor to Rahmatollah Hafizi, confirmed the sending of this "text message" to the newspaper Hamdeli, stating that on Friday during the "election of the president and the Supreme Council and the meeting of the elected representatives of the Medical System," Hafizi was "warned" that "if you want to be a candidate for the presidency, you cannot be a candidate for the Supreme Council, and before the elections, Ali Nobakht sent a text message to Mr. Iraj Fazl and introduced individuals in the Supreme Council who were exactly the ones who won votes." Hossein Raghfar, an economist, warned in an interview with the newspaper Qanoon that "commercial capitalism has made social explosion likely." This institutional economist and professor at Alzahra University attributed the "decision-making system" in Iran to "owners of commercial and financial capital" and stated that "capitalism in Iran's economic system serves only the centers of power, and as long as this method prevails, the private sector will not have an influential role, and the continuation of this trend has led to the accumulation of wealth and rent after the eight-year war in Iran, resulting in the waste of Iran's economic resources and widespread unemployment." Raghfar emphasized that "the only way to overcome this trend is to strengthen popular oversight institutions and regulate the activities of the mentioned centers," stating that "what worries this economist is the current planning method, which is incapable of solving the current issues of Iran's economy, and he suggests changing the process so that with this change, economic friendships become less pronounced and gradually the real private sector can continue its effective activities in Iran's economy." Raghfar pointed out that "currently, there is no mechanism for the voices of the people to be heard," stating that "the voting system in the political system is one of the ways to hear the voices of the people, and in my opinion, events like the second of Khordad 76, the elections of 84, 92, and 94 and 96 have a common message, and none of them target a specific group, and the common message of all of them is change. Change in this economic system that ignores the votes, needs, and desires of the people. The widespread unemployment that exists is the result of not hearing the demands of the people." The newspaper Qanoon quoted this economist as saying: "It is observed that there are serious resistances in the structure of the components of power against the formation of civil society organizations," while "the voices of vulnerable groups can be heard by these organizations and reflected in the centers of power and in the media, which ultimately will turn into a national demand," but "if reforms are not made from within, a social explosion will occur. Therefore, we hope to see signs of this in the system and witness that they yield to reforms."