Newspaper Accounts of WikiLeaks Documents Against Saudi Arabia

WikiLeaks' release of Saudi government documents has received widespread coverage in Iranian Sunday newspapers. The newspaper Etemad described it as a "wave of documents against Saudi Arabia," while the newspaper Qanoon published a report titled "Saudi Secrets" on the matter. The newspaper Javan highlighted in its front page the "leak of half a million documents against Saudi Arabia," referencing one document about funding the education of Ataollah Mohajerani's child. The newspaper Kayhan introduced Mohajerani as one of the protesters from 2009, evaluating the leaked document regarding the funding of the Islamic Culture and Guidance Minister's child's education as evidence of "the connection between seditionists and the Saudi court." This newspaper also mentioned a document about Faezah Hashemi's trip to Saudi Arabia, stating that she "delivered a 30-minute speech to the hosts at a private dinner in Riyadh on June 13, 1999, organized by the Crown Prince's wife, while her changes made her unrecognizable. She attended the event in a Melrose suit and with short hair." The newspaper Shargh reported under the headline "Non-Iranian Women Allowed, Iranian Women Banned," referring to the continued prohibition of women entering Azadi Stadium to watch the Iran vs. USA volleyball match, and reported on Shahindokht Molaverdi, the Vice President, criticizing the ongoing "ban on women's presence in stadiums." The newspaper Iran described "disrespect" as a "new plague in the political atmosphere" of Iran, publishing opinions from several political and social figures on the matter, quoting Hamid Reza Jalai Pour as saying: "It is clear that the hardliners are supported by a hidden network. These protests are not the work of a social force." The newspaper Aftab Yazd highlighted the remarks of Mohammad Taqi Misbah Yazdi against the household of Ayatollah Khomeini and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, stating that this cleric close to the Steadfast Front said: "In the early years of the Prophethood, including the incident of the Prophet's death, many relatives and companions of the Prophet failed. That test was for 1400 years ago, and since then society has grown more. At that time, some relatives of the Prophet were agents of deviation and failed, and now some relatives of Imam Khomeini." The newspaper Shahre Vahdat published a report on recent decisions by the Food and Drug Administration regarding how to import medicine to Iran, evaluating these decisions as breaking the "monopoly on drug imports." This newspaper emphasized that "breaking the monopoly on drug imports is a matter worth considering," stating that "on the one hand, it is said that this action will lead to a reduction in the prices of foreign medicines, while on the other hand, it is criticized that importing medicine in this way will not hold the drug-producing company accountable." The newspaper Etemad reported on a "meeting to clarify the limited participation of universities in solving social and political issues" at Allameh University in Tehran, quoting Mohammad Qanai Rad, one of the speakers at the meeting, as saying: "Today, the university is depressed; a university anxious about past events and worried about future events. To revive the spirit of the university, the independence of the university and its academic freedom must be recognized. Matters such as the election of university presidents and the promotion of professors should be entrusted to an independent body called the University Parliament, where decisions are made with the presence of elected members from universities. Both power must return to the university, and the student movement must be recognized. The movement not in the old sense of breaking glass and noise but in the sense of students entering dialogue to make better use of their capacities." The narrative of Iranian newspapers regarding the release of WikiLeaks documents against Saudi Arabia is that the newspaper Etemad reported on its front page a "wave of documents against Saudi Arabia," stating: "Once again, Julian Assange, the director of the whistleblower site WikiLeaks, detonated another digital bomb in the world from his refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, this time targeting the Saudi government with his ultra-modern information weapon and releasing documents that unveil Saudi Arabia's actions in the Middle East." According to this newspaper, "WikiLeaks claimed to have accessed half a million documents from Saudi diplomats that show what messages Saudi diplomats exchanged in various parts of the world over the past years. WikiLeaks announced that it has currently released 60,000 of these documents in its first action, but the difference between these documents and previously leaked WikiLeaks documents is that this time WikiLeaks has published documents in Arabic, and it can even be said that almost all documents are in Arabic, which has caused international media to act slowly in examining the dimensions of the information in these documents." The newspaper Etemad noted that "on the letterhead of the newly released WikiLeaks documents, the green emblem of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of this country is visible, and even some of these documents have stamps classified as highly confidential or top secret," stating: "It is still unclear how WikiLeaks obtained these documents. Nevertheless, evidence suggests that these documents are related to the recent hacking attack on the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs carried out by the Cyber Army of Yemen." This newspaper emphasized that "overall, these documents reveal the Saudi palace's positions on the long-standing rivalries between Tehran and Riyadh," stressing that these documents "show how Saudi Arabia has structured many of its policies to counter Iran and the hypothetical threat of Shiites." The newspaper Etemad specifically referred to documents that focus on "containing Iran," stating that "the classified documents of the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs published on the WikiLeaks website show that the Saudi embassy in Tehran sends periodic reports about internal news in Iran, news from publications, and nuclear negotiations to Riyadh." According to this newspaper, "one of these documents dating back to 2012 shows Saudi Arabia's doubts about nuclear negotiations with Iran. In a message sent from the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Tehran to Riyadh, it is stated that messages from a Turkish mediator, whose name is not mentioned, were sent from the US to Iran," and one of the "classified documents of the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs shows that Saudi Arabia has asked the Arab Gulf countries to compensate for the reduction of Iran's exports if the European Union imposes sanctions on crude oil imports from Iran." The newspaper Etemad also reported that "several of the newly released WikiLeaks documents confirm that the relationship between Iran and the Hamas movement is one of the important issues for Riyadh" and that "the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs and its embassies in various capitals, including Tehran, closely monitor news related to Iran's relations with the Hamas movement," with one of these documents referring to "the efforts of the Arab Gulf countries to persuade Ismail Haniyeh to refrain from traveling to Tehran." The topics of "Al-Qaeda," "secret relations with Israel," "interference in Lebanon," "controlling developments in Bahrain," and "Shiite-phobia" are among the focal points of the newspaper Etemad in the newly released WikiLeaks documents. This newspaper also reported that "the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not remain silent in the face of the flood of WikiLeaks documents against Riyadh and immediately requested citizens on its Twitter page to disregard these leaked documents as they are fake and only serve the enemies to achieve their goals." The newspaper Javan, close to the Revolutionary Guards, in its front page on Sunday published a report about the "leak of half a million documents against Saudi Arabia," stating that according to one of the documents released by WikiLeaks, "the Saudi embassy in Tehran encouraged Saudi officials to invest in street chaos in Iran." This newspaper wrote about how WikiLeaks accessed these documents: "About a month ago, the Cyber Army of Yemen announced that it had hacked thousands of documents from the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs and would publish them soon. It seems that these documents have now been handed over to WikiLeaks for publication." The newspaper Javan also wrote: "One of the released documents shows that the Saudi embassy in London funded the education of Ataollah Mohajerani's son, the Minister of Culture and Guidance during the reformist government. This document, dated October 10, 2011, covers over £12,000 for each academic year and over £4,000 for the living expenses of Mohajerani's child." The newspaper Kayhan also described the release of the new WikiLeaks documents as confirming the connection between the 2009 protesters and Saudi Arabia, stating in a report emphasizing "the connection of seditionists with the Saudi court" that "one of the documents released by WikiLeaks shows that the Saudi embassy in London funded the education of Ataollah Mohajerani's son, a minister during the reformist government and an activist of the 2009 sedition." This newspaper also wrote: "In one of the documents released by WikiLeaks, beautifully titled, it discusses Faezah Hashemi Rafsanjani's trip to attend a dinner in Riyadh," adding that in part of this document, which dates back to 1999, it states: "Faezah Rafsanjani, the daughter of the former President of Iran, as the Vice President of the Iranian National Olympic Committee... spoke for 30 minutes to the hosts at a private dinner in Riyadh on June 13, organized by the Crown Prince's wife, while her changes made her unrecognizable. She attended the event in a Melrose suit and with short hair." The newspaper Shargh reported under the headline "Non-Iranian Women Allowed, Iranian Women Banned," referring to the continued prohibition of women entering Azadi Stadium to watch the Iran vs. USA volleyball match, and reported on Shahindokht Molaverdi, the Vice President, criticizing the ongoing "ban on women's presence in stadiums." According to this newspaper, "On Friday, the doors of the volleyball halls were again closed to women," and "despite the promises and actions of the government, 12,000 men and four or five women were spectators of Iran's victory against the USA on Friday; women who, according to news agencies, did not have Iranian citizenship and entered the hall with non-Iranian passports." The newspaper Shargh emphasized that "given the prohibition on the entry of all women, female journalists were also prevented from entering the hall where the Iran vs. USA volleyball match was held," quoting ISNA news agency as stating: "Special forces took strict measures to control the crowd. So much so that one hour before the match started, the entry of journalists also faced problems," and the flow of this match "continued with the strict handling of security forces, even in the VIP section, to the extent that the HD camera stationed in this section broke in the chaos." This newspaper emphasized that a few women and teenage girls were present during the Iran vs. USA volleyball match, stating: "While just a day before the match, officials from the federation were still struggling for women's entry into the hall, and then women's presence was canceled, a few female spectators watched the game closely in the 12,000-seat Azadi Stadium in Tehran; spectators who, according to some, had Italian passports but were cheering for the team while waving the three-colored Iranian flag," as "according to the regulations of the International Federation, Iran has committed that it cannot prevent the presence of women with foreign nationalities in the stadium." Shargh wrote: "The presence of these few limited women is enough to eliminate the threat of Iran losing hosting at least until the next match." According to this newspaper, Shahindokht Molaverdi, the Vice President for Women and Family Affairs, responded to her angry critics one day after the Iran vs. USA match and the continuation of the prohibition on female spectators entering the 12,000-seat Azadi Stadium, "a response worthy of critics who three days earlier had gathered in front of the Ministry of Sports demanding her dismissal and labeled women wanting to watch the volleyball game as immoral in their protest statements." Shargh quoted Shahindokht Molaverdi as saying: "All this uproar is not for watching football, swimming, boxing, and wrestling, but for watching volleyball, which until two years ago had no specific prohibition and was considered normal." However, "the question is whether in these two years the conditions and circumstances for watching these games have fundamentally changed that the ruling should also be subject to change? Are we not introducing our country as incapable of managing and controlling this simple issue and creating the necessary infrastructure? Wasn't the Healthy Sea Plan implemented in this country? In these provincial trips and in the public speeches of the President or in religious places, with the necessary measures, men and women are present together, what happens? Why do some people have the talent for complicating issues and making them difficult to solve so that a knot that can be opened by hand cannot be opened even with teeth?" Misbah Yazdi stated that "the Khomeinis failed in the exam of steadfastness" and that "in the early years of the Prophethood, including the incident of the Prophet's death, many relatives and companions of the Prophet failed. That test was for 1400 years ago, and since then society has grown more. At that time, some relatives of the Prophet were agents of deviation and failed, and now some relatives of Imam Khomeini."