Tehran's Billboards Spark 'Virtual Storm'

The newspaper Shargh described the resignation of three bank CEOs as "suicidal resignations of banking managers" and reported that "Ismail Allahgani from Bank Saderat, Siamak Dolati from Mehr Iran Bank, and Ali Rostegar from Bank Mellat have resigned." According to this newspaper, while "an informed source" told the IRNA news agency that "following the President's firm order to investigate the issue of salaries, the managers of four banks—Refah, Mellat, Saderat, and Mehr Iran—were to be changed by the Minister of Economy due to receiving unusual salaries and loans," the CEOs of these banks "preemptively submitted their resignation letters to the Minister before the meeting on Saturday to avoid being labeled as dismissed." Shargh recalled that previously, "Ali Sedghi, the CEO of Bank Refah, was removed due to receiving unusual salaries from the general assembly of this bank," and noted that "there are also reports of the dismissal of Safdar Hosseini, the CEO of the National Development Fund, although this has not yet been confirmed." The newspaper Etemad also dedicated its Saturday front page to the "tsunami of resignations in the banking system" and wrote that the government has taken significant steps to control the salaries of managers, including "the resignation and dismissal of the CEOs of five prominent banks" and "the suspension of banking benefits for banking system managers" and "the prohibition of managerial staff from being on the boards of companies." Zahra Ali Akbari, the economic secretary of Etemad, emphasized in a note that "the poisonous sting of the salary slips has penetrated the body of the Iranian economy, which now resembles someone bitten by a venomous snake and in need of immediate treatment." She wrote, "Some have begun treatment through dismissal and some through resignation, but it is clear that the end of the story is not easily predictable." The columnist noted that "the normalization of numbers had happened long ago; when the zeros of figures inscribed on financial corruption files in previous years reached twelve digits," and wrote that "three thousand and twelve thousand billion tomans presented in economic corruption files had diminished the grandeur of numbers in the eyes of public opinion," but "now the government that intended to register the honor of fighting corruption and preventing the recurrence of corruption cases in its name is now facing a crisis of salary slips that has posed a serious and heavy challenge to Iran's management system." The newspaper Javan, close to the Revolutionary Guards, described the wave of changes, dismissals, and resignations of bank CEOs as "the beginning of the cleansing of astronomical managers from banks" but deemed it insufficient and called for the scope of dismissals to extend to the Ministry of Oil, emphasizing that "this is a good start but will convince society only when dismissal, trial, and the return of public assets are carried out" and also "not limiting the issue to banks and extending it to other areas, including oil." This newspaper also wrote that Hassan Rouhani's government "should make the utmost use of this excuse and platform and register this revolutionary action in its file" because "no bread is coming out of the oven of the JCPOA for the government. Addressing this issue will increase the votes and social capital of the government, and the people are waiting for the government's clean handkerchief to wipe away the pollution of astronomical salaries." The newspaper Vatan-e-Emruz, close to the Front of Steadfastness, evaluated the changes in bank managers as a "4 Richter earthquake in the banking system" and wrote: "Astronomical salary slips are toppling bank managers one after another; to the extent that on Friday, news of the dismissal of three bank CEOs was published in the media, and several other bank CEOs are also in line for dismissal." This newspaper, however, simultaneously leveled new accusations against some other banking managers and reported that "following the publication of the astronomical salary slip of Mohammad Ibrahim Moghadam Noudahi, the CEO of Bank Tejarat, he will also be dismissed soon," and wrote that Moghadam Noudahi's position, which he has held for 38 years in the banking system, "became shaky when a bizarre salary slip of him and some members of the board of Bank Tejarat was published. What distinguished the salary slips of Tejarat from others were the astonishing bonus clauses. For example, for Father's Day or the week of Wilayat and Eid al-Fitr, bonuses of 7 to 13 million tomans were allocated for him." Vatan-e-Emruz simultaneously introduced "Ali Rostegar," the resigned CEO of Bank Mellat, emphasizing his shared hometown with Hassan Rouhani, as the "King of Astronomical Salaries" and accused him of having received $125,000 and £200,000 in bonuses from two companies abroad last year, amounting to over 1.4 billion tomans. This newspaper also accused Fatemeh Hosseini, the current representative of Tehran in the tenth parliament and daughter of Safdar Hosseini, of having established a "currency exchange company" in 2011 during the peak of the "currency crisis" in Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government, and simultaneously wrote that previously, "Es'hagh Jahangiri had reported on the role of some currency exchanges in creating currency turmoil in 2011 and 2012, the exit of $22 billion in currency, and a 7 trillion toman rent in that year." The newspaper Jahan San'at, with the headline "Bank Managers Victims of Tayebnia," wrote: "The head of the bank assemblies is the Minister of Economy (Ali Tayebnia), and all financial statements and bonuses are formalized and executed with the approval of the Minister of Economy and the head of the Planning and Budget Organization, who, after the disclosure of astronomical salary slips, has only remained silent and forced bank managers to resign to preserve his position." The newspaper Shargh on its front page published an interview with Taghi Nourbakhsh, in which the CEO of the Social Security Organization spoke about "the undiscovered codes of Saeed Mortazavi" and emphasized that "since Mr. Mortazavi's time, we have lists that have been paid to individuals in coded amounts, and it is unclear who these individuals are." The newspaper Hamdeli on its front page reported on "the mystery of suspicious text messages" regarding the content of a text message sent on Friday to about 700 journalists, stating: "Warning: Any communication and cooperation with hostile elements abroad via email, secure portals, and other communication means is criminal and subject to legal prosecution. It is essential to cut off your communications. This message serves as the last security warning." This newspaper noted that "this message was initially sent to women's and children's rights activists and then to political activists" and several journalists, stating that this message was sent "from a personal number" and despite the phrase "security warning" and "legal prosecution" in the text, no security or judicial official has taken responsibility for this threatening message and has declared it a kind of personal action. Hamdeli recalled that "this message was sent from four different phone numbers" and while "journalists, graphic designers, and editors active in reformist newspapers and media have mostly received this message, there has been no news of it being received by colleagues in principlist media." According to this newspaper, "most media activists received this message from 7 PM on Friday, and before that, from 5 PM, it was received by some political and party activists," and "student activists, those in the fields of women, children, publishing, and literature for children, and families of political prisoners also received it before 5 PM (Friday) Tehran time." The newspaper Hamdeli reported that some journalists are also considering filing a complaint, stating: "Some journalists who received this message intend to file a complaint with the Cyber Police on Saturday due to intimidation and threats against the owners of these four phone numbers," adding that "this is the first time that such messages have been sent via personal phone numbers instead of SMS centers." The newspaper Shargh also reported on "threatening text messages sent to some journalists" and noted that so far no official judicial, informational, or security authority has commented on this matter." This newspaper simultaneously reported that "minutes after the publication of images of threatening text messages by journalists," Hossein Ghasemi, who was the governor of Shiraz during Ahmadinejad's government and now writes as a historical and security analyst for some media outlets like Mashregh News and the banned website Jahan News, wrote in his Telegram channel: "While the worst and most provocative method of communication or warning to media professionals has been chosen in this discussion, the responsible agencies must quickly clarify the source of such a message. If anyone or any agency sends such messages without identifying themselves, nothing will hold together." According to this newspaper, Mohammad Ali Vakili, a representative of Tehran in the parliament and the managing director of the newspaper Ebtekar, also expressed ignorance about this message, stating: "This message falls into two categories: either it has a self-driven and personal aspect, which is a warning bell in the media community, or if it is governmental and security in nature, it should have been officially communicated to the Ministry of Culture before being sent, and in this regard, it is legally void, so I invite media professionals and those who received the message to remain calm and hope that they are not threatened." Mohammad Ali Vakili stated, "That someone can access the personal space of a large number of media professionals even for personal reckoning and create fear and terror is a security alarm; therefore, this issue must be seriously and legally pursued to identify the authority that issued the message, whether it was judicial or not, whether it was personal or security, and if it was personal, action should be taken to arrest the offender, and if it was from a security authority, clear reasons should be provided." The newspaper Iran, while publishing a report about "controversial billboards of the Tehran municipality," wrote: The Tehran municipality, by writing slogans such as "Did you know that in America, 2 out of every 5 newborns are illegitimate?" and "Did you know that in America, a woman is assaulted every 9 seconds?" on banners and installing them on the streets of Tehran as part of a project called "American Human Rights" has caused a lot of reactions. Fatemeh Jamalpour in the Iran newspaper report pointed out that social media users, with the hashtag "proposed slogans for Tehran's municipality billboards," shared a wave of criticisms regarding the municipality's performance and the state of social harms, writing: Some of these protests strongly pointed out that "the municipality of a city that has 15,000 homeless people and more than several thousand child laborers, and whose visible drug addicts have disfigured the city, would it not have been better to allocate the budget for installing such billboards to reduce social harms and help these working children or to draw attention to the increasing social harms and warn families?" The Iran newspaper recalled that "this is not the first time the municipality has taken such action and installed such banners. Previously, during the nuclear negotiations, the municipality displayed billboards opposing these negotiations." Now, "officials have different positions regarding this action by the municipality; on one hand, Abdul-Maqim Nasihi, the head of the cultural commission of the city council, with a conservative inclination, reports a serious criticism of the necessity of the council's warning to the head of the Tehran Beautification Organization, while on the other hand, Mojtaba Shakri, a conservative member of the committee that approves the content of city billboards, fully defends it." Mojtaba Shakri, a member of the cultural commission of the Tehran city council and a member of the "slogan approval committee of the Beautification Organization," told the Iran newspaper: "These slogans are the result of a campaign; I saw the album of these works on Tuesday, and the messages were relatively acceptable" because "our people should know that the Americans who manage the cyberspace do not give us our rights in the name of human rights, do not respect human rights themselves; they condemn the execution of our traffickers, while this is good in our view and part of our law; what they think is right, we do not know, and vice versa." This conservative member of the Tehran city council also stated: "These actions were not as strong as the American democracy works. I preferred those works more, but I liked the plan where Obama was holding a weapon instead of shaking hands the most." The newspaper Shahrevand also focused on the "virtual storm" of the proposal for the billboard to the municipality, writing: "The Tehran municipality once again stirred up a storm in the virtual space; this time with the installation of billboards named 'American Human Rights' aimed at showing the weaknesses and social problems of American society. Billboards that quickly faced reactions from some social media users contrary to what the municipality officials expected." Hamid Ebrahimzadeh pointed out that social media users reacted to the Tehran municipality's banners with the hashtag "proposed banners for Tehran municipality," suggesting a large number of sentences reflecting the social realities of Iran to the municipality, writing: "The scope of this hashtag became so extensive that in the last days of the weekend, it turned into the most important topic on social networks, with thousands of posts written with this hashtag on Twitter and Telegram." According to the Shahrevand newspaper, among the proposed banners to the Tehran municipality, users addressed "mostly social issues and problems" that Iranian society is grappling with, and Gholamreza Alizadeh, a sociologist and university lecturer, also stated that the existence of "conflict and contradiction" in the Tehran municipality's banners and the municipality's attack on "American society" has caused public reaction, adding that "people compare in response to these types of slogans and information and think about why thousands of educated individuals who have cost a lot for them leave the country every year and this exit costs billions.