The End of the Case of the Self-Directed

The newspaper Shargh, in its front page titled "The End of the Case of the Self-Directed," quotes Ali Motahari, the Deputy Speaker of the Islamic Consultative Assembly, stating: "I give my consent to the main instigator of the Shiraz attack." In an interview with Ameneh Shirafkan, a reporter for Shargh, Ali Motahari mentioned that the "main instigator" of the attack on him in Shiraz was later transferred to Tehran and received a "promotion order." He stated: "They have been punished enough, and the main instigator has also been sufficiently admonished. We have done this - giving consent to the crime of the main instigator - for the interests of the country." Shargh reminded that "on March 9, 2015, Ali Motahari was attacked while heading to Shiraz University for a speech, and this member of parliament has now expressed satisfaction with the outcome of the investigations," to the extent that he told this newspaper: "I am satisfied because both the attackers and the second-level instigators have been condemned and punished, and all of them confessed to their wrongdoing in court and apologized in the first trial. Additionally, this incident had very positive effects in Fars province and the country, completely eliminating the previous atmosphere and climate that existed in that province. Institutions have also been placed in their proper positions, and the governor has changed." This member of parliament emphasized that the attackers were "organized. It was not a spontaneous act; they had orders to carry out this action," while "self-directed individuals are those who disrupt a program spontaneously." According to Shargh, Ali Motahari commented on the sentences issued by the court for three academic figures who invited and hosted him during his trip and speech at Shiraz University, saying: "Sentences were issued for the university president and the cultural deputy of the university. However, in the appeal, the university president was acquitted, but the cultural deputy remains condemned, while the poor man had no role and his sentence was not fair." He added, "Apparently, a student was fined, but I did not find out whether his sentence was overturned or not. He also had no role in the incident; he only signed under the invitation letter." The controversy over the suspension of the Zoroastrian representative of the Yazd City Council has reached a conflict between the Guardian Council and the Parliament, and Abbasali Kadkhodai, the spokesperson for the Guardian Council, emphasized in an interview with the newspaper Shahrvand that "the Guardian Council's opinion regarding Spenta Niknam is binding." The spokesperson for the Guardian Council stressed that "the representatives who object to this issue are not correctly aware of the laws, and individuals like Ali Larijani cannot suspend this interpretation of the Guardian Council." He stated: "Ali Larijani (the Speaker of the Islamic Consultative Assembly) cannot do such a thing. It is like a resolution that has gone through its legal stages and has been approved, and then Mr. Larijani wants to suspend it. This is not the first time such interpretations have been applied by the Guardian Council. There have been other resolutions, but since this recent opinion was accompanied by political issues, it received more media attention." The newspaper Shahrvand noted that "at the end of Farvardin this year, during the busy days of reviewing the qualifications of city and village council candidates, a new interpretation was published by the Guardian Council regarding Clause 1 of Article 26 of the City Council Election Law by Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, the secretary of this council, which caused a lot of noise." According to this new interpretation, based on the words of Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979, which are found in Sahifeh Noor, Volume 6, printed in 1992, page 31, the candidacy of non-Muslims in areas where they are in the minority is considered contrary to Sharia. The newspaper reported that "after the elections and after Spenta Niknam, the Zoroastrian member of the Yazd City Council, was once again elected by the people of this city, the Administrative Justice Court issued a temporary suspension of Spenta Niknam's membership in this city council following a complaint by Ali Asghar Bagheri, a defeated candidate in the Yazd City Council. However, this issue faced opposition from some members of parliament, to the extent that representatives from Yazd province sent a letter to Ali Larijani, the Speaker of the Parliament, requesting the review and lifting of his suspension from the Yazd City Council; a letter that was also sent to the head of the judiciary." Abbasali Kadkhodai, the spokesperson for the Guardian Council, however, told the newspaper Shahrvand: "Whenever the jurists of the Guardian Council see a resolution as contrary to Sharia, they can intervene and announce it, and the opinion of the Guardian Council is binding. Over the years, we have remembered that regarding a resolution, after several years, someone complains or writes a letter, and if a resolution has been deemed contrary to Sharia by the jurists of the Guardian Council, it is published in the official newspaper and is also binding. This recent resolution was like those, meaning the jurists of the Guardian Council examined the issue, voted, deemed it contrary to Sharia, and sent it to the relevant authorities for notification and execution," but "the intervention of the Administrative Justice Court based on a complainant's complaint has no connection to the Guardian Council." The spokesperson for the Guardian Council regarding the fact that "religious minorities, including Zoroastrians, have had representatives in the Islamic Consultative Assembly for years," stated: "The Constitution explicitly speaks about the presence of representatives of religious minorities in the Islamic Consultative Assembly, but according to Article 13 of the Constitution, religious minorities not mentioned cannot have representatives in the Assembly. Spenta Niknam was elected in the city council elections, not in the parliamentary elections. The Constitution does not say anything about city council elections, and ordinary laws govern this area, and according to the opinion of the Guardian Council, in areas where the majority are Muslims, religious minorities cannot be members of the city council." Concurrently, the newspaper Ebtekar pointed out that "the suspension order for Spenta Niknam, a Zoroastrian member of the Yazd City Council, issued by Branch 45 of the Administrative Justice Court is a topic that has faced a lot of reactions from the public and many officials in official media and informal virtual spaces," quoting Bahram Parsai, a member of the Central Supervisory Board for City and Village Council Elections, stating: "From the perspective of this board, the presence of Spenta Niknam, a Zoroastrian member of the Yazd City Council, has no legal prohibition, and there is a possibility of proposing an interpretation in Parliament to resolve the issue of the Zoroastrian member of the Yazd City Council." This member of the tenth parliament stated that during the review of the qualifications of candidates for the city council elections, Spenta Niknam was able to participate in the elections with the approval of the Central Supervisory Board for City Council Elections, and told the newspaper Ebtekar: "From the perspective of the Central Supervisory Board, there is no prohibition for the presence of religious minorities in city and village councils. This law was passed several years ago, and several rounds of city council elections have been held based on it, and the conditions for registrants and the qualifications of individuals have been determined, and according to those regulations, the executive and supervisory boards have approved these individuals." Bahram Parsai emphasized that "the people also participated in the elections according to those regulations and voted for the approved individuals," stating: "Mr. Spenta Niknam received the necessary votes from the people to be present in the Yazd City Council, and this choice and the opinion of the people should be respected," adding that "after the legal definition of Article 26 in Clause 1, explanations have been added for religious minorities, and in that clause, it is explained that their adherence to their own religion is sufficient, and adherence to Islam is not a condition. An issue that was overlooked in the ruling of the Administrative Justice Court." This member of the Islamic Consultative Assembly implicitly referred to the Guardian Council's new interpretation regarding the prohibition of membership of religious minorities in city councils with a Muslim majority, stating: "If the law needs to be amended, the parliament must intervene to amend it, and no other authority can interfere in the laws approved by the parliament, which have also been approved by the Guardian Council. The Administrative Justice Court should have referred to the resolutions of the parliament for issuing a ruling regarding Spenta Niknam, as there is no documentation to prevent the presence of religious minorities in city councils." The newspaper Etemad reported on "the murder of a two-and-a-half-year-old child after sexual abuse by his stepfather" and wrote that this incident occurred on Saturday night in the Lakani area of Rasht, where "the stepfather, after assaulting the two-and-a-half-year-old child, repeatedly slammed his head against the wall to silence his cries, but this led to the child's death. According to this newspaper, "On Saturday, October 14, neighbors of a residential complex in the Lakani area of Rasht heard the screams of a two-and-a-half-year-old child named Ahura, who lived with his young mother and stepfather. The neighbors' attempts to enter the house and save Ahura were unsuccessful until the police arrived, and upon entering the house, they found the two-and-a-half-year-old Ahura lying on the ground, covered in blood. The neighbors saw the child's stepfather sitting on the couch, claiming he did not know what had happened to the boy," but one day after Ahura was transferred to Pour Sina Hospital in Rasht, he died with "a bruised face, broken ribs, and ears that had been severely twisted, all indicating that Ahura had been assaulted." The mother of the two-and-a-half-year-old Ahura, who was not home at the time of the murder, wrote: The child's stepfather, named "Mojtaba," confessed on Sunday at the police station that the devil had deceived him and that he had assaulted Ahura. Additionally, Etemad quoted the child's father as saying: "When I was contacted to go to the hospital to see Ahura, I was not in Rasht. When I arrived at the hospital, the doctors said my son's lungs were destroyed, and due to a brain injury, his IQ was six percent. The doctors at the hospital diagnosed that sexual abuse had occurred and informed me of this." This newspaper noted that the forensic medicine of Gilan also announced that "sexual abuse and physical assault accompanied by a brain injury were the primary causes of death of this two-and-a-half-year-old child by his stepfather," quoting Ahmad Siyavashpour, the head of the Gilan judiciary, stating: "The child's stepfather claimed that he had no history or psychological problems and had not consumed any drugs at the time of committing this crime." The newspaper Hamdeli dedicated its front page to photos related to "the assault and murder of Ahura by his stepfather, the reminder of the horrific murder of Setayesh Gharehishi on the verge of executing the sentence of her murderer, and the gathering of the merchants of the Plasco building in their gathering in front of the Foundation of the Oppressed," and apologized to its audience, stating: "We are sorry that we have no good news." Masoud Rafiei Talaghani, in a note, pointed out that "on Tuesday, reading two news stories was enough to make one feel down; the murder accompanied by the assault of a young child in the city of Rasht and the (imminent) execution of the murderer of the teenager Setayesh Gharehishi, who was horrifically murdered in April this year; both accompanied by assault." He wrote: "These two news stories are enough to make one cry; the first in terms of the occurrence and the second in terms of reminding the occurrence of Setayesh's murder. What has happened in our land that the scope of the act of assault against children and teenagers has reached this point?" The newspaper Hamdeli stated that "alongside these, there was news of the gathering of the destitute of Plasco," and "the behavior of Mohsen Qaraati with that man, who is known as 'Mr. Camera Guy,' and whose video circulated on social media yesterday, was painful in its own right," writing: "These were the hot news of Tuesday in Iran that were being circulated among the people and impacting their minds; the gathering of Snapp drivers was the same, otherwise the latest statistics on economic growth that the government spokesperson announced and the various news from the parliament and government are often so repetitive that the people are no longer affected by hearing them! Every morning when people wake up, they seek an impact, and it is regrettable that on some days there is no joyful effect in their daily lives." The newspaper Bahar reported that following "whispers of calculating taxes on the turnover of businesses," in some trades, "sellers are asking for cash." This newspaper stated that "card readers, which have established themselves well in all trades and among most customers, have been sidelined for some time," noting that "the reason for this is the concern about connecting these devices to the country's tax system and calculating taxes for businesses based on the volume of card transactions," as "in 2011, the cabinet had a resolution mandating banks to report individuals' banking transactions to the tax administration in front of the Shaparak plan. This resolution was passed to create more transparency in the banking system, but according to officials, it is still not being implemented, while reports from some provinces indicate that this resolution has been executed and taxes are being collected through this method." According to the newspaper Bahar, "public reports indicate that many restaurants and shops in the city of Isfahan and some other cities are receiving the price of goods or services in cash and not allowing customers to use card readers. This issue has created problems for citizens." Rasul Jahangiri, the head of the Isfahan Chamber of Commerce, stated: "The business community of the country supports economic transparency and should not hold the actions of a few limited businesses against three million active businesses in the country," but "there are concerns regarding tax calculation." This newspaper quoted Rasul Jahangiri as saying: "Calculating taxes based on banking turnover is not feasible because it can be said that most individuals in society perform other transactions unrelated to their economic activities with their financial accounts, and for this reason, financial turnover is much greater than the income of a business unit, and if this tax model is implemented, people will face difficulties." According to Bahar, while Saeed Motameni, the head of the union of car sellers and exhibitors, emphasized that "last year, the amount of taxes for our trade was calculated by reviewing bank statements," Gholamreza Qiblaei, the director general of the public relations and tax culture office, denied the claims made on social media.