Newsworthy Nowruz

The newspaper Etemad described Nowruz 1395 (2016) as 'Newsworthy Nowruz' and mentioned several significant events during the Nowruz holidays, including 'the illnesses of Mohammad-Reza Shajarian and Abbas Kiarostami,' 'the annulment of votes for Mina Khalighi, the elected representative from Isfahan,' 'Carlos Queiroz's farewell from coaching the Iranian national football team,' and 'the explosions in Brussels and Lahore.' According to this newspaper, Nowruz 1395 served as a warning for the 11th government, which has 'only one more Nowruz to live,' indicating a challenging and tumultuous year ahead, reminding that 'the year of rivals' is approaching, with rivals preparing to register for the presidential elections in the Ministry of Interior soon. On the second Saturday of the New Year, 'Mohammad-Baqer Nobakht's ceremonial speech in Hoveyzeh was interrupted by organized pressure group slogans.' Etemad noted that during the Nowruz programs of state television, there was no news of the TV series 'Paytakht' or 'Kolah Ghermezi,' stating that even the series 'Doodkesh' was not mentioned in the Nowruz schedule, leading people to prefer to rest their TVs or look abroad more than any other year. Instead, 'the serious entertainment of this Nowruz, like in recent months, was following the competitions of the U.S. presidential elections.' Sasan Aghaei criticized the long Nowruz holidays for newspapers and media, writing: 'Nowruz 1395 was a serious and somewhat ruthless teacher for us; it reminded us that media can be absent, closed, or resting, but news never goes home to wait for your return to your desks; it continues its sometimes pressured and occasionally lethargic flow, a bit bitter and somewhat sweet, and these absent media during the holidays deprive themselves of exciting and attractive headlines that could have been created and the daily news challenges.' The Hamdeli newspaper also highlighted 'the newsmakers of the holidays,' referring to the 'controversy' surrounding the Nowruz trip of Hassan Rouhani and Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani to Kish, and the annulment of Mina Khalighi's votes by the Guardian Council. During the Nowruz holidays, Hossein Shariatmadari, the editor-in-chief of Kayhan, also expressed support for Donald Trump's opposition to the JCPOA in a strange statement. This newspaper also dedicated its front page to Mohammad-Reza Shajarian and reported on the nationwide reaction to the illness of the master of Iranian music. The newspaper Vaghaye Ettefaghieh, in a note titled 'Two-Minute Message Waves,' wrote that Shajarian's two-minute message 'was enough to generate waves of messages and comments from the highest officials to artists in the music field and others.' Sima Babaei reminded in this note that Shajarian 'speaks of a 15-year-long party while spending seven years under a singing ban. He has not only had the opportunity to release a work, but he has also been unable to hold concerts, and his voice has been banned from the national media, with even his 'Robab' not broadcasted.' The Shahrvand newspaper also reported on its front page with the title 'Eventful Nowruz,' stating: 'From the beginning of Nowruz travels until Farvardin 12, 351 people lost their lives in road accidents,' with 'Bushehr, Fars, and Golestan' being the provinces with the highest number of traffic accident victims during Nowruz. The Vaghaye Ettefaghieh newspaper noted that 'the series of deaths on the roads' continued during Nowruz 1395, reporting that 'more than 300 people lost their lives from Esfand 25 to Farvardin 7, and this number is expected to exceed 800 by Farvardin 15, 1395,' while 'in the past five years (1390 to 1394), a total of 5,738 people lost their lives in Nowruz traffic accidents.' This newspaper emphasized that 'the ineffectiveness of laws, the low quality of domestically produced vehicles, the lack of road standards, and human errors are the main culprits for the high traffic accident statistics.' The Tejarat newspaper quoted Iskandar Momeni, the deputy commander of the police, stating that during the Nowruz holidays, 'the Pride car had the highest number of traffic accidents,' and according to traffic accidents during this period, 'more than 2 trillion tomans in material damage was inflicted on the country.' Abdul-Vahid Mousavi Lari, the interior minister during Mohammad Khatami's presidency, reacted to the annulment of Mina Khalighi's votes, stating to the Shargh newspaper: 'There is absolutely no possibility of annulling her votes. How can one declare the votes of some individuals valid and invalidate the votes of one person in a box that has the names of five other candidates next to hers?' According to Abdul-Vahid Mousavi Lari, 'the Ministry of Interior must send the credentials of all elected representatives, including Ms. Khalighi, to the parliament according to its legal duties,' because 'after the elections and the confirmation of the election's validity, if a candidate has a problem, the Guardian Council or the supervisory and executive boards cannot intervene and address it,' and 'the legal mechanism in this regard is the review of representatives' credentials in parliament, and ultimately the votes of other representatives in parliament regarding the credentials of other representatives are decisive.' Abdul-Vahid Mousavi Lari emphasized that 'aside from Ms. Khalighi's issue, this procedure needs to be reacted to and protested against,' telling the Shargh newspaper: 'After the elections, one cannot annul an individual's votes. Our point is not only about Ms. Khalighi entering parliament or not; our point is about this procedure from a legal perspective,' and after confirming the election's integrity, 'a candidate who has won votes is the people's representative. Neither the Guardian Council can intervene, nor should the government comply with this process.' The Vaghaye Ettefaghieh newspaper also reported on this matter, stating: 'After her initial disqualification because her father was a prominent revolutionary in Isfahan and had a long-standing friendship with Ahmad Salek, who is an influential figure in Isfahan, Mina Khalighi managed to obtain her qualification with a letter from Salek and the Friday prayer leader of Isfahan. However, when Mina Khalighi won in the elections, 'those who had mediated withdrew their endorsements and caused her disqualification.' This newspaper wrote that 'during the days when the main and secondary streets of Isfahan were covered with posters of conservatives, Mina Khalighi, with the help of reformist youth, set up a small campaign headquarters that within a week became the headquarters of the third elected representative of the people of Isfahan.' 'Cultural attacks on the government should be taken seriously' is the title of a note in the Hamdeli newspaper, which states: 'Since the beginning of the new year, attacks on the cultural apparatus of the government of hope and prudence have taken on a more organized and explicit form than before.' Reza Nahvi, a journalist, in a note for the Hamdeli newspaper, pointed out that the media team of 'the 11th government seems confused and weak without any clear strategy to repel these attacks,' writing: 'For this reason, it has left the field open for comprehensive attacks from the opposing side.' Newspapers close to the conservative faction highlighted the remarks of the Supreme Leader in their first issue of 1395, and Kayhan quoted Ayatollah Khamenei as saying: 'JCPOA 2, 3, and 4 are American policies and demands.' Hossein Shariatmadari, the representative of the Supreme Leader in Kayhan, in an editorial, noted that senior officials of the 11th government have accused Kayhan and other critics of 'misunderstanding, extremism, and warmongering,' calling them 'sanction profiteers,' and even 'the Guardian newspaper wrote that only two people in the world are angry about the Lausanne nuclear agreement: Netanyahu in Israel and the editor-in-chief of Kayhan in Iran.' Kayhan wrote that now the Supreme Leader has referred to the continuation of the JCPOA with its current specifications as 'a total loss' and, referring to America's broken promises and the relentless animosity of the imperialist powers against Islamic Iran, introduced a return to a resistant economy and reliance on internal capacities as the solution, especially warning officials against falling into the trap of operationalizing JCPOA 2, 3, etc. The Javan newspaper also headlined 'Both Negotiation and Missile,' stating that this part of the Supreme Leader's remarks in a meeting with a group of mourners was 'a response to those who say tomorrow's world is a world of negotiation, not missiles.' Mohammad Javad Akhavan, in a note titled 'Resistant Economy, from Slogan to Action' in this newspaper, emphasized: 'Other medium- and short-term economic programs of the country, such as the sixth five-year plan and the annual budget and other temporary plans, should be aligned and consistent with these policies.' The Javan newspaper, close to the Revolutionary Guards, also emphasized in this note that 'utilizing external capacities outside the executive branch, such as the Basij and popular capacities, is another point that the Supreme Leader has previously emphasized in the context of strengthening the economy, which has unfortunately remained neglected.'