Slogans and Complaints Against Ali Motahari

The newspaper Etemad reported on its front page on Monday about the slogan "Death to the Hypocrite" directed at Motahari, stating: "This will be the last time" and "Death to the Hypocrite" were shouted by Jawad Karimi Qodusi, a representative from Mashhad, in the open session of the parliament while moving towards the speaker's podium and towards Ali Motahari as the head of the parliament. Zeynab Safari's report in Etemad noted that "the margins of Motahari's letter to Mostafa Pourmohammadi, the Minister of Justice regarding the executions of 1988, were brought to the parliament on Sunday, and some representatives from the Front of Steadfastness interrupted Motahari's responses to this notice with uproar, with one of them shouting 'Death to the Hypocrite' while moving towards the speaker's podium." Despite all this, Ali Motahari finished his speech. He has faced tougher experiences with the hardline representatives in the parliament before, as "we have not moved far enough from December 2014 to forget the incident of the attack on Motahari in the parliament and tearing up his speech text. Now, once again in the tenth parliament, he is facing hardliners. However, this time he is in the position of deputy speaker of the parliament, and they are a small but noisy group." Etemad noted that 20 signatures have been collected for a complaint against Ali Motahari to the Supervisory Board on the Behavior of Representatives, stating: "The maneuver of hardline representatives on Sunday had another result. The real weight of hardliners in the tenth parliament does not exceed 30 representatives at best. This can be understood from the number of signatures collected for the protest against Motahari's letter. While Mohammad Ali Pourmokhtar mentioned in an interview with ISNA that the letter requesting an investigation into the qualifications of Ali Motahari as deputy speaker of the parliament had 30 signatures, Fars and Tasnim news agencies reported only 20 signatures for this letter." The newspaper Hamdeli, also titled "Slogans and Complaints Against Ali Motahari," reported on "the reaction of some representatives to the positions of the deputy speaker of the parliament regarding the audio file of Ayatollah Montazeri," stating that Ali Motahari "if in the past his political maneuvers were intertwined with the name of the martyr Master Morteza Motahari, the ideologue of the Islamic Revolution, he is now recognized as an independent and famous politician, although he still shows signs of his father in principles." This newspaper noted that Ali Motahari "in the previous parliament faced some hardline representatives to the point of almost being beaten," and wrote: "On Sunday, he also faced opposition accompanied by slogans and threats, and the letter he wrote two days earlier to the Minister of Justice caused disturbances in the open session of the parliament." Hamdeli recalled that "in recent days, Ali Motahari showed a different reaction to the audio file of Ayatollah Montazeri. While many political figures considered the released audio file from Ayatollah Montazeri a step towards cleansing the hypocrites (Mujahedin-e Khalq), the deputy speaker of the parliament asked figures like Mostafa Pourmohammadi, Ebrahim Raisi, and Hossein Ali Niri, who are addressed in this audio file, to explain and apologize if any wrongdoing occurred." The newspaper Shahrvand reported on its front page titled "Astronomical Houses," quoting Qasem Mirzaei Nikoo, a member of the Council Commission in the parliament, about "the beginning of a group of representatives' activities to investigate the Tehran municipality." This representative mentioned that a number of signatures have been collected from parliament representatives to initiate an investigation into the Tehran municipality, stating: "Currently, initial warnings have been given regarding three axes of interest to the representatives requesting this investigation to the Tehran municipality, and we intend to obtain the necessary information about the municipality's violations from the General Inspection Organization through necessary correspondence." However, "if this information is not convincing to the representatives, the impeachment of the Tehran municipality will officially begin." "Issuing permits and construction licenses recklessly," "incorrect appointments in the Tehran municipality," and "the issue of recklessly transferring properties to city council members" are other axes of the parliament's investigation into the Tehran municipality. According to the Shahrvand newspaper, Mahmoud Sadeghi, a representative from Tehran in the parliament, also emphasized in an oral warning that "the Tehran municipality, in addition to facing organized corruption, has also spread corruption to other centers of the country by bribing some organizations and institutions." This newspaper also reported that "in the non-public session of the city council on Sunday, some members, by revealing new cases from this file, demanded transparency from supervisory bodies, including the General Inspection Organization in this regard," and Mohsen Sarikhou, the head of the labor faction of the Tehran city council, also stated that "city council members must return properties that they received with discounts and facilities from the municipality," adding that "some have also used these facilities in the name of friends or family members," and among them, "employees and reporters of the state television also used the shares of the municipality's employees, which is against regulations, and we do not know what these properties were provided to the reporters of the state television in exchange for." The Arman newspaper also published an interview with Abdolhossein Mokhtabad, who stated: "There is financial mismanagement in the Tehran municipality, and it currently exists. We in the city council have seriously examined the financial violations of the municipality. Nevertheless, the financial violations in the Tehran municipality are so high that it must be stated that the Tehran municipality is a government within another government." Abdolhossein Mokhtabad emphasized that "the annual budget of the Tehran municipality is about 20 trillion tomans, which is more than the budgets of some ministries and also some provinces of the country," stating that "the accountability of the Tehran municipality regarding financial matters is very difficult and complicated, and there are many ambiguities in this regard. The Tehran municipality uses various methods to evade accountability to the city council." The newspaper Tehadol highlighted the Tehran municipality's reaction to the news about the transfer of municipal properties to specific individuals with special discounts and quoted a statement from the Tehran municipality stating: "The news of the transfer of some municipal properties with discounts to specific individuals has prompted an official response from the Tehran municipality," and the Tehran municipality announced in a statement that "no property has been transferred to anyone without adhering to regulations," emphasizing that "it will pursue the publication of falsehoods through legal and judicial channels." According to this newspaper, the Tehran municipality described its actions as "organizing and fairly distributing documented lands and apartments to cooperative members" and announced that this action is "transparency and documentation and regularization of housing transfers and itself prevents rent-seeking and discrimination in past methods," but it has been "misinterpreted." The newspaper Siyasat Rooz reported in a news piece titled "The Reaction of the Representatives of the People to the Suspicious Behavior of the Deputy Speaker" that "Ali Motahari's letter to Mostafa Pourmohammadi, the Minister of Justice, regarding his recent statements about the audio file of Ayatollah Montazeri and the request from this parliament representative for the Minister of Justice to provide explanations regarding the rumors related to the events of 1988 created disturbances in yesterday's open session of the parliament." Simultaneously, the newspaper Shargh published the latest reaction from Mostafa Pourmohammadi, the Minister of Justice in Hassan Rouhani's government and a member of the judicial executive board of the 1988 executions, on its front page, stating: "We take pride in executing God's command regarding the hypocrites." According to this newspaper, Mostafa Pourmohammadi, on Sunday afternoon at a meeting of the administrative council of Lorestan province held in the provincial governor's office, stated that "today the hypocrites (Mujahedin Khalq) live with disgrace and curse and hatred, and it is true that America, Israel, and Saudi Arabia approach these individuals; however, they have no value to betray their own nation and ultimately will not be trusted by anyone and have no value," stating: "God said do not have mercy on the infidels because they do not have mercy on you, and the hypocrites should not be shown mercy because if they can, they will drag you into blood and soil, which they did, and we take pride in executing God's command regarding the hypocrites and standing firmly against the enemies of God and the nation." The Shargh newspaper also reported the beating of a journalist in the parliament corridor by Nader Qazipour, stating: Nader Qazipour on Sunday beat journalist Ehsan Badaghi from Iran newspaper. This newspaper reported: "The incident occurred after the open session yesterday while journalists were talking to representatives in the parliament corridor, and the journalist from Iran newspaper asked Qazipour a question about the reason for his efforts to establish a faction for Turkish speakers, and during this conversation, Qazipour asked the journalist about whom he voted for in 2013 and 2015, and after the journalist's response, he stated that 'you reformists are anti-Islam and anti-Velayat-e Faqih' and punched the journalist in the face." Shargh reported that the representative from Urmia in the tenth parliament "continued to punch the journalist, took his voice recorder, and after taking the journalist's hand, took him to the parliament's security office; however, the incident did not end there, as Ehsan Badaghi, the journalist from Iran newspaper, stated that in the security office of the parliament, the agents deleted files from the recorder and obtained a commitment from him not to repeat the incident in the parliament corridor and mentioned the possibility of banning him from entering the parliament," while "several journalists and even some representatives witnessed Qazipour's behavior towards this journalist at the moment of the incident." The Iran newspaper also published the news of the beating of Ehsan Badaghi, the parliamentary journalist, by Nader Qazipour, stating: "The journalist's question to Nader Qazipour at the end of yesterday's open session of the parliament faced an unusual reaction from the representative. The inquiry about the objectives and programs for forming the faction of Azerbaijani speakers in the parliament was the journalist's question to Nader Qazipour," but "Qazipour apparently interpreted this question as an objection to the establishment of this faction and, in a protest behavior, in addition to swearing, physically assaulted the journalist from Iran newspaper." This newspaper announced that "to prevent any potential misuse of this event and diverting it to other issues, it refrained from a hasty media reaction to the behavior of the mentioned representative but reserves the right to pursue the matter through legal channels to protect the professional security of journalists while performing their duties." The Iran newspaper also reported that over 200 journalists and media activists in a letter to Ali Larijani, the Speaker of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, called for addressing the unconventional behavior of the representative from Urmia towards the parliamentary journalist from Iran newspaper and stated that "while strongly condemning this incident, we ask you to promptly and thoroughly address this immense disrespect to the dignity of journalism in the house of the nation." The newspaper Vatan-e Emruz dedicated its front page to Abdolrasoul Daryaei Isfahani with the title "The Hole," stating that Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, the spokesperson for the judiciary, in his 101st press conference with media representatives, in response to the question that "one of the representatives reported the arrest of a member of the negotiating team on charges of espionage, and recently the Tehran prosecutor announced the arrest of a dual-national suspect; is this true?" stated: "The essence of the arrest is correct, and he was under investigation and was released on bail after a few days." According to this newspaper, the spokesperson for the judiciary stated: "There is a difference between being under investigation and proving the charge, and these two are different from each other." Vatan-e Emruz noted, "Although the spokesperson for the judiciary refrained from providing more information about this individual and his responsibility in the nuclear negotiating team, this individual was one of the members of the financial and banking working group of the nuclear negotiating team responsible for examining the banking commitments of the counterpart in the JCPOA, and while this individual, who has dual nationality, received a third-degree service medal from Hassan Rouhani in a ceremony honoring the 'glorious achievers of the JCPOA.'"