Protests of Investors at the Press Exhibition

The newspaper Bahar dedicated its front page photo and headline to the presence of protesting "investors of credit and financial institutions at the Press Exhibition," stating: "The protests of investors of unauthorized financial institutions, which previously manifested in sit-ins in front of decision-making centers and street demonstrations, reached the Press Exhibition on Tuesday." According to this newspaper, "The protesting people shared their grievances regarding the performance of officials concerning unauthorized financial institutions with the media and complained about media activists, asking why, alongside political and factional issues, there is little coverage of our protests in your newspapers? Why is there no mention of our protests alongside yellow news about marriages and divorces?" The newspaper quoted the protesters at the Press Exhibition as saying: "Are our years of suffering from political, sports, and cinematic disputes less valuable? Why, for once, can't you be the voice of us people instead of politicians from this faction or that faction? Shouldn't a media outlet claiming to be 'national media' speak about us?" Bahar newspaper also discussed the roots of the crisis of unauthorized financial institutions, stating: "Just a few years ago, financial and credit institutions were opening one by one, attracting public trust through extensive urban advertisements and promotional programs on state media. These institutions encouraged people to invest their savings with promises of high returns, which have now proven to be mere illusions, offering slightly higher interest rates than other banks, while the officials of the time were oblivious to this situation and the warnings of economists, focusing instead on managing the world." The newspaper Arman published allegations against Hamid Baqai, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's deputy in the tenth government, quoting a member of parliament, Nader Qazipour, stating: "In Mr. Baqai's house, there were 703 full gold coins, 1842 half coins, 15 two-and-a-half coins, 21 billion 175 million 300 thousand rials in cash, and 454 million 510 thousand rials from the Presidential Institution. It was said that we wanted to return the money after improving our relations with Mr. Rouhani's government, while this amount was considered public property." According to Arman, this parliament member, in an interview with the official website of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, House of the Nation, mentioned that so far only Baqai's financial misconduct case has been referred to court, stating: "One can refer to the embezzlement of 16 billion tomans from the Iranian University, which was withdrawn from the state budget on the day of the inauguration of the eleventh presidential term according to the Court of Audit report," and "Another embezzlement case involving Mr. Baqai relates to the delivery of 3 million 766 thousand 500 euros and 590 thousand dollars from public funds, which were given to them in 2013 for expenses at the Islamic Summit, but this amount was not spent." Nader Qazipour also mentioned: "Another seizure related to Mr. Baqai's case involves 300 billion tomans taken from the Iranian House, in a way that money was transferred from public funds to the Iranian House account," and in addition, "When Hamid Baqai was responsible for the Cultural Heritage Organization, several companies were established under names such as Information Technology Development, Arya Heritage, My Spring Land, Iran Tourism, and the Iranian Automobile Touring Association, and contracts worth 512 million 683 thousand 973 tomans were set up with companies in which he and his associates were members." Allegations of employing "cousins and relatives as employees in these companies" and "sham transactions in the name of a spouse" were also made against Hamid Baqai, with Nader Qazipour stating: "Individuals like Akram Hosseini, Morteza Baqai, and Marzieh Oveysi Feizi, the wife of Morteza Baqai, conducted sham transactions and withdrew money." Following the publication of these allegations, "Hamid Baqai reacted to Qazipour's claims regarding his case on his Telegram channel, stating: 'Mr. Qazipour, your response and that of your handlers is just one sentence: You are not your father's true son. If you do not publish evidence of your claims from that news agency within 24 hours, I will take action.'" Simultaneously, the newspaper Hamdeli reported on the latest status of the investigation into the Cultural Fund's reserve fund, quoting Jabbar Kuchakinejad, a member of the tenth parliament, stating: "The investigation process took 9 months" and "the amount of misconduct was over 14 to 15 trillion tomans." This parliament member emphasized that extensive misconduct occurred in the "Cultural Fund's reserve and its subsidiary companies, including Bank Sarmayeh, Housing Company, Petro Farhang, and Investment Company," stating: "More than 20 individuals were arrested in this regard and went to prison, but now they have been released on bail and have committed to returning the money," and one of the defendants in this case, whose debt amounts to 500 billion tomans, has left Iran. The newspaper Hamdeli quoted Jabbar Kuchakinejad stating that "the lawyer of this individual mentioned in an interview with us that arrangements are being made for him to return to the country and take action to return the approximately 400-500 billion tomans related to him," but "since this case is still open, if new leads are obtained, it is possible that other individuals may also be arrested and interrogated," as "this misconduct, through the Cultural Fund's reserve, has been intertwined and networked by various sectors I mentioned, and with the revelation of other hidden layers of this network's actions, additional amounts may be added to the volume of misconduct." Kayhan, in the headline of its Tuesday issue, emphasized that "the mother of sanctions has arrived," stating: "While the 'implementation of the CATSA sanctions' begins on November 9, the beautifiers have buried their heads in the sand." This newspaper stressed that "the serious start of the mother of sanctions, or the black hole of sanctions, begins on Tuesday," stating: "An important feature of this plan is placing the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on the list of terrorist organizations, and considering that the IRGC is an official entity with systematic relations with governmental and non-governmental structures, it will cause a large part of the governance, including the government and other powers and institutions, to fall under the sanctions list." Kayhan wrote that with the implementation of these sanctions, "there will be nothing left of the JCPOA to discuss whether it is being violated or not," and emphasized that Hassan Rouhani's government should "for once implement the law of 'Iran's proportional and reciprocal action in implementing the JCPOA.'" Mohammad Javad Kolivand, a representative assigned by Ali Larijani, the speaker of the tenth parliament, to negotiate with the Guardian Council and the Administrative Justice Court to lift the suspension of Sepanta Niknam, a Zoroastrian member of Yazd City Council, told the newspaper Etemad: "By amending Article 26 of the Council Election Law and extending it to Niknam's situation, he will return to the Yazd City Council." This parliament member noted that "the speaker of parliament has had negotiations with both the Guardian Council and the Administrative Justice Court regarding this issue. Then the matter was assigned to me to follow up and summarize it and inform him. I conducted the negotiations. The summary was that we should request a postponement from the Administrative Justice Court regarding the temporary suspension of Mr. Niknam's membership, and during this postponement, which the parliament must go through, we should amend the first clause of Article 26 to bring this matter to an appropriate conclusion, resolving the conflict between the Guardian Council and the parliament, and if the Guardian Council does not agree with this amendment and the parliament stands by its opinion, the matter will go to the Expediency Discernment Council." Therefore, "we have put the path of amending the law on the agenda, and the working group for this began its work on Sunday." According to Mohammad Javad Kolivand, the parliament intends "to amend the law so that in council elections, non-Muslim citizens in areas where they are minorities can only vote for their own candidates. That is, like the Islamic Consultative Assembly elections, non-Muslim compatriots should have a candidate for themselves and vote for him, not all Muslim and non-Muslim citizens of that area." In response to the Etemad newspaper's question that the amendment to the council election law will not have retroactive effect and will not include Sepanta Niknam, he said: "That's correct. However, it can either convince the Guardian Council or if it does not, it can go to the Expediency Discernment Council and the matter can be resolved there. Therefore, we believe that we should first amend the law because we did not follow the path of removing the first clause of Article 26 in the elections that were held. The Guardian Council unilaterally and according to its powers removed this clause. Therefore, this conflict should be resolved through amending the law and then extending the issue to Sepanta Niknam's rights." The Etemad newspaper simultaneously reported, under the headline "Debate of Two Brothers," that "Ali Larijani's reiteration at the end of the vote of confidence session for two cabinet ministers against the Guardian Council's action in providing a new interpretation of the council election law has brought new and more serious opponents to the field, including Sadegh Larijani, the head of the judiciary, who said on Tuesday: 'The Guardian Council's entry into this issue and its Sharia review by the jurists of the Guardian Council is not only not problematic but is the duty of the jurists of the Guardian Council. The determination of cases contrary to Sharia by the esteemed jurists of the Guardian Council has no time limit.'" According to this newspaper, Sadegh Larijani expressed his opposition to his brother Ali Larijani's view on the Guardian Council's entry into this issue, stating: "Some have discussed the principle of expediency regarding the jurists of the Guardian Council's entry into the disputed issue of an individual's membership in the city council; although some believe that the members of the Guardian Council cannot enter into a matter as expediency, I believe that the Guardian Council can also enter into issues as a secondary matter, and of course, regarding matters contrary to Sharia, the jurists of the Guardian Council can provide a ruling on the Sharia compliance or non-compliance of a law or resolution while considering expediency." Etemad reminded that Ali Larijani, in his remarks on Sunday, rejected the Guardian Council's opinion, stating: "If we accept this argument that we should enact a law and then the Guardian Council takes two ten-day periods to express its opinion and then this is communicated - like this council law - and then years later the Guardian Council comes and says this matter has a Sharia problem and rejects it, it seems to me that the very philosophy of the Expediency Discernment Council for correcting matters of disagreement between us and the Guardian Council is eliminated. Because we may correctly identify a matter, but the Guardian Council may say it has a Sharia problem. We insist, and the matter goes to the Expediency Discernment Council and is approved, but when it is approved, a few years later (the Guardian Council says this matter has a Sharia problem and rejects it)." The newspaper Iran reported, quoting Mahmoud Alizadeh Tabatabai, the lawyer of Mohammad Ali Taheri, about the annulment of his sentence due to "non-compliance with laws." This newspaper quoted Mahmoud Alizadeh Tabatabai regarding the latest status of Mohammad Ali Taheri's case in the Supreme Court, stating: "According to the news we have received, his death sentence has been annulled due to non-compliance with laws, but nothing has been communicated to us. In this case, the file will be sent to a parallel branch for further review, and after the annulment of the sentence in the Revolutionary Court, the branch will be determined, and then the date and time for the new hearing will be specified." Mohammad Ali Taheri, the founder of "Circle of Gnosis" in the 80s, has been detained and imprisoned since May 2010 and has been tried twice by the Revolutionary Court and sentenced to death. The newspaper Jameh Farda dedicated its front page to an interview with Mostafa Tajzadeh, a figure close to the reformist faction, stating: "Our connection with the principlists is severed." Mostafa Tajzadeh, regarding Behzad Nabavi's proposal for "de facto peace" between the reformist and principlist factions, said: "I agree with the content of this proposal. However, I do not think there will be much agreement with this term. That is, de facto peace means that we do not accept each other, but we must accept each other. This term de facto belongs to international relations. Relations between two countries that do not have much disagreement with each other are normal relations. However, recognizing the essence of the matter de facto means that we do not recognize the main issue, but we must somehow tolerate it. Therefore, I think this term will not be welcomed much, but the content of the proposal, which is correct and a national need, will be welcomed." This political activist also stated: "The political arena of our society today is not only two factions of principlists and reformists. It is true that these two are in power, and a third section of society is absent, but this section exists seriously in society, is active, and has demands and opinions. Any plan that is called national must include them as well. Otherwise, such a plan will be called intra-governmental, which is not clear whether it can respond to the needs of our society." He added: "If I want to give a statistic, those who did not vote for either Mr. Rouhani or Mr. Raisi! These are 18 million. 24 million voted for Mr. Rouhani, 16 million voted for Mr. Raisi, and 18 million did not vote." The newspaper Jameh Farda quoted Mostafa Tajzadeh stating: "Except for groups that are armed, target the integrity of Iran, and are separatists, the rest of the groups are realities that even if we do not accept them, we must recognize them," and although "some parts of the reformists may not recognize these groups, they are part of the reality of the society.