"O You Who Advocate Negotiation..."; Slogans by Qom Seminary Students Against Rouhani

An examination of the images related to the slogans distributed during the gathering of seminary students at the Fayzieh School in Qom strengthens the speculation that the overall spirit of this gathering and its warning messages against Hassan Rouhani and the eleventh government were organized and directed. On Thursday, August 25, a group of seminary students held a gathering protesting "economic corruption" under the title "Demand for Economic Justice," where the slogans used were more pronounced and controversial than the gathering itself. One of the main speakers at this gathering was Hossein Tayebi-Far, the commander of the special brigade of seminary students known as "Imam Sadiq Brigade" of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, but his speech was overshadowed by the slogans, and his presence and statements were marginalized. Significant images from this gathering have been published, but there is no sign of coverage from Fars News Agency and Tasnim News Agency. ISNA, Mehr, Rasa, the News Center of the Seminary, Shafaqna, and Abna are six news agencies that published photographic reports from this gathering. The slogans at this gathering were in two forms: typed and handwritten. The typed slogans contained attacks on Hassan Rouhani, the eleventh government, and the JCPOA agreement, and generally had a political theme. The handwritten slogans were more focused on fighting corruption, the necessity of dealing with corrupt individuals, and related economic problems, which clearly differed from the typed slogans. The most controversial typed slogan of this gathering was a poem or text alluding to the possible cause of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani's death and a warning to Hassan Rouhani about sharing the same fate as Rafsanjani. Only one photo of this slogan was published by the Shafaqna news agency, and no similar image was seen in the photographic reports of other news agencies. In this single image, a seminary student holds a text stating, "O you who advocate negotiation, the Farah pool awaits you." This threatening message actually refers to the death of Akbar Hashemi, the former head of the Expediency Discernment Council, on January 8, 2017, which conservative critics say occurred while he was swimming in the pool. The "Koushk" pool belongs to the Expediency Discernment Council and was built after the 1979 revolution, which Rafsanjani typically used. Long after Rafsanjani's death, Saeed Qasemi, one of the commanders of the IRGC, was the first to announce his death in the "Farah" pool, and after that, other conservative media repeated this topic. Meanwhile, the office where Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani died belonged to Leila Imam, the wife of Hoveyda, which Rafsanjani referred to in his memoirs in 1995. It is said that after Rafsanjani settled in this house, it was decided to build a pool there, which ultimately became the site of the former head of the Expediency Discernment Council's death. The discussions regarding the real cause of Rafsanjani's death in this pool have become one of the ambiguous and perhaps dark points in the history of the Islamic Republic, and these ambiguities have recently entered the literature of a group of conservatives who also threaten some of their rivals or opponents, such as Hassan Rouhani, with this pool. The second controversial slogan in this gathering also related to Hassan Rouhani, implicitly referring to the current president of Iran as a "British mercenary" whose "henna" has no color. The controversy over Rouhani's educational credentials from the University of Glasgow has been a tool for a group of hardline conservatives in Iran to label him as "English" since 2013. The third slogan, also related to Hassan Rouhani, addressed him without mentioning his name, stating, "The student from England, negotiation is not the key." This slogan is another allusion to Rouhani's studies in Britain, his electoral symbol in the 2013 presidential election, and his insistence on negotiating with the U.S. and the West to resolve Iran's issues. Criticism of the nuclear negotiation team and the JCPOA agreement was also the fourth political slogan seen at this gathering, which stated: "JCPOA members return/ Submit to the leader." This slogan reflects the belief among conservatives that Hassan Rouhani and his companions have no connection with Ali Khamenei and that the path they have chosen is in contradiction to his approach and method. Perhaps the only less political typed slogan at this gathering was a message seen in the hands of a cleric that had an economic and livelihood theme. This slogan is actually the most economic typed slogan, implicitly acknowledging that sanctions and economic problems have led to the "emptiness" of people's pockets in Iran. The last image related to the typed slogans shows that all these slogans were prepared in advance and brought to the gathering site, where they were distributed among the crowd after a while. The closest and most genuine slogans to the main declared purpose of the demonstrators were those written with markers. The first of these handwritten slogans, in the seventh image examined from this gathering, relates to two quotes from two clerics residing in Qom regarding the necessity of dealing with "corrupt individuals." In one of these slogans, the term "corrupt managers" was used, calling for action against them. In the eighth image from this gathering, two handwritten slogans are seen, one of which contains a quote from Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, regarding the hostile stance of the "committed clergy" against "vulture-like capitalists." The other handwritten slogan translates a verse from the Quran addressed to believers, admonishing them: "What has happened to you that you do not fight in the way of God and the oppressed?" In the ninth image from this gathering, two handwritten slogans are also seen, one of which displays a message from a "revolutionary seminary student" stating that he will not remain silent in the face of "corruption and discrimination." The second handwritten slogan in this image states that he is the "voice of the beaten workers of Agh-Dareh." The tenth and final image related to this gathering shows a group of protesting seminary students burning counterfeit dollars, which also received considerable attention on social media.