The Whip of the Employer and Judge on the Backs of Claiming Workers

The Law newspaper, in the headline of its Tuesday issue, referred to the "approval of Qazipour's credentials" in the first branch of the credential review, describing it as a "victory for Nader Qazipour" and wrote: "Mehdi Moghaddasi, Hossein Niazazari, Farhad Falahi, Seyyed Kazem Delkhush, Georgek Abramian, Mohammad Sadegh Hasani, Mohammad Khalaghi, Mohsen Alijani Zamani, Mehrdad Lahouti, Mohammad Reza Tabesh, Mohammad Mahmoudi, Sadegh Badri, Nahid Tajeddin, Mohammad Qasim Osmani, Seyyed Aladdin Khadem, Bashir Khalaghi, Seyyed Mohammad Javad Abtahi, and Majid Naseri Nejad are the names of the representatives who approved the credentials of someone who had angered many people." This newspaper emphasized that "among this list, there are also prominent reformists, and most of the individuals present in the first branch who confirmed Qazipour as a representative are reformists." It wrote: "Some of these representatives claimed in conversations with Law that they were unaware of the matter, and some said that an objection should have been made to the credential approval process so that we could investigate, but at least the expectation from these representatives was that they would listen to the voice of the general public." Mehrdad Lahouti told Law newspaper: "Women representatives in the parliament should have protested so that we could address it, but nothing happened." This newspaper previously published a report in its issue on March 1, 2016, titled "Qazipour, the Heir of Ahmadinejad," which included parts of an electoral speech by Nader Qazipour, the conservative representative of Urmia, who said: "We did not acquire this country easily to send every fox and donkey to that place. The parliament is not a place for donkeys! ... The parliament is not a place for women; it is a place for men. Send them to bring disaster upon you so that your reputation is ruined." These remarks faced widespread protests, including protests from female conservative representatives of the ninth parliament, and some elected women of the tenth parliament promised to protest these remarks during the credential reviews. Law newspaper criticized reformists in its Tuesday issue on June 1 for not protesting Qazipour's credentials, describing it as "a beginning with passivity" in the tenth parliament. Aftab Yazd newspaper criticized the "silence against the credentials of the controversial representative" in its front page and quoted a member of the first branch of the tenth parliament's credential review, stating: "No objection regarding the approval of this credential has been sent to us, and for this reason, we approved this credential. Even if one representative had objected, the first branch would not have voted on it." Shargh newspaper, on its front page, published a photo of the third elected representative of Isfahan, who has been prevented from entering the parliament since her disqualification after the elections by the Guardian Council, reporting: "The fate of Minou Khalaghi will be determined on Tuesday." According to this newspaper, Mohammad Javad Fathi, who previously announced a proposal to review Minou Khalaghi's credentials in the parliament, said: "This proposal is under review in the second branch," but now he stated: "In the forms given by the parliament to the branches and based on the division of cities, five individuals are mentioned in parentheses in front of Isfahan city, but the credential paper for Khalaghi has not been sent to the branch, so my understanding is that the parliament gives the branch the authority to enter this matter, but there were friends in the branch who believed that when the credential paper has not been sent, they should not enter the discussion." Shargh wrote: "The fact that the parliament sent Khalaghi's name as the elected representative of Isfahan to the second branch is encouraging news" because Mohammad Javad Fathi, a legal representative from the Hope list of Tehran, stated based on this decision of the parliament: "I believe that Khalaghi's credential paper is procedural but not substantive; in other words, it is a ceremonial document, and it seems that if the parliament can verify that the Guardian Council or the provincial supervisory council declared the electoral validity, the Minister of Interior must send the credential to the parliament according to the explicit text of the law, which needs no interpretation. Now, if for any reason the Ministry of Interior has not sent this credential, it is within the parliament's authority to protect its own competence." Kayhan newspaper, in its front page, accused reformists of "abusing independent representatives" and wrote: "The reformist claimants who previously claimed to have gained a majority of the seats in the tenth parliament, after weighing the Baharestan and determining their actual voting weight, resorted to abusing independent representatives." Kayhan also wrote that media close to reformists, after the majority of the tenth parliament voted for Ali Larijani's presidency, "have turned to a treason project." Vatan-e-Emruz newspaper, whose owner Mehrdad Bazrpash failed to enter the parliament during the tenth elections, published a photo of Mohammad Reza Aref in the parliament's public session with the headline "Hypocrite Traitor" and wrote: "Reformists, who had seen their defeat as certain before the temporary presidency elections, instead of accepting their minority status in the parliament, labeled some representatives as 'traitors' and in comments, shamelessly named those who were on the Hope list but inclined towards Ali Larijani's presidency as 'traitors.' However, one day after the temporary presidency elections were held and reformists suffered a heavy defeat, they labeled the elected representatives as hypocrites." Shargh dedicated its front page photo to Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and quoted him as saying: "Do not expect anything from the government regarding the lifting of house arrest." According to this newspaper, the head of the Expediency Discernment Council, in an interview with Aftab website regarding Hassan Rouhani's electoral promise to lift the house arrest of Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mehdi Karroubi, and Zahra Rahnavard, said: "Do not expect anything from the government regarding the house arrest. The government cannot do anything. At present, in this atmosphere, predicting is a bit easy. Of course, a transformation can happen, and I do not want to be negative; I cannot predict." Shargh also quoted Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani regarding potential disagreements between the leader and the president: "Ultimately, in our country, the main reference is the leadership. The general policies are determined by the leader. Discussion should not prevent the leader and the president from working well together. Disagreements always exist everywhere." Vaghaye Ettefaghieh also reported on the possibility of a meeting between Obama and Rouhani. Etemad newspaper has a report on the clash of "baton-wielding" forces attributed to the Tehran municipality with several street vendors in Tehran, stating: "For several days, a short film has rapidly spread on social networks; a roughly five-minute film in which several baton-wielders violently attack two or three other young men and beat them. However, the significant point in this film is that this fight occurs while the city guard forces and police are present at the scene but make no effort to intervene in the fight or arrest the baton-wielders." Hamid Reza Khaledi in this report recalled that "this film, which is not the first of its kind showing municipal forces in scenes of conflict after incidents like the Saadat Abad car wash and the street vendor (beet vendor) on Republic Street or breaking a fruit vendor's cart in Shadman metro, once again directs sharp criticism towards the municipality and its forces." Etemad, referring to the fact that "the scenes in this film are so shocking that inevitably affect every viewer," wrote: "At the beginning of this film, which resembles fight scenes from the 30s and 40s, the main attacker in the film, a strong and tall young man in a white t-shirt and black pants, approaches the city guard's vehicle and pulls a baton from inside the vehicle's cabin and attacks one of the individuals on the opposing side, smashing the stick over his head. In several other parts of this film, someone filming with their mobile phone shouts at several baton-wielders as they chase someone to beat him: 'He's not the one. He's one of our boys from the municipality.'" Abolqasem Chidhari, the managing director of the Tehran municipality's city guard company, however, denied the affiliation of these "baton-wielders" with the Tehran municipality in an interview with Etemad, stating: "This incident occurred about 20 days ago in front of Tuska Park on the Azadegan Highway in Region 15. That day, our forces in Region 15, along with police forces, went to the area to collect vendors, and while they were gathering their goods, suddenly it became unclear why a group of these vendors and bystanders attacked another group of vendors, and the clash began." Jahane San'at newspaper has a report titled "Graduates Selling Balloons" and wrote: "The lack of job opportunities and the inability of young people to access promising employment has led some job seekers to turn to makeshift and street vending jobs, among whom there are also university graduates." The Javan newspaper, close to the Revolutionary Guards, has unusually criticized the judiciary for implementing the whipping sentence on workers of the Aghah Dareh gold mine. This newspaper, in a report titled "The Whip of the Employer and Judge on the Backs of Claiming Workers," wrote: "Workers who protested in December 2014 due to the layoff of 350 of their colleagues, and during this time, one of the workers committed suicide due to the psychological pressure, and at that time the relevant judge, upon the employer's complaint, filed charges against about 17 workers for creating chaos, and at the end of last month, the whipping sentence against them was executed, which has caused a lot of uproar." The Javan newspaper pointed out that "the news of the whipping of several workers has raised the question in people's minds that with respect to all laws and the manner of their issuance, should not the judge consider all aspects before issuing a ruling? If the secondary action of the workers is considered a crime by law, was the cause of these protests also taken into account at the time of issuing the sentences?" This newspaper wrote that the judiciary "should hold the relevant judge accountable for not being able to weigh the national consequences of his ruling and acting more judiciously in this regard," and simultaneously criticized the Ministry of Labor, stating that while the Minister of Cooperatives, Labor, and Social Welfare, along with his organizations, "travels to Geneva to present labor achievements, Iranian workers must receive whipping sentences for protesting the sudden termination of their cooperation." The newspapers Hamdeli and Aftab Yazd dedicated their front page to Mohammad Reza Shajarian. Hamdeli wrote: "After years of waiting, finally on Tuesday, the director of Channel One announced that the melody of 'Robaye' by Mohammad Reza Shajarian will be broadcast on television during this Ramadan. A melody that, although this great Iranian music artist, despite his severe displeasure with the national media and the ban on this organization from broadcasting his musical works, allowed the broadcast of this melody 'for the people,' but after the controversial events of the 2009 elections and following some of Mohammad Reza Shajarian's stances, this melody was removed from the Iftar table of the Iranian people." Vaghaye Ettefaghieh has reported on a new solution to counter the cancellation of concerts, stating: "Alireza Ghorbani will hold the first online concert." Farhikhtegan newspaper has published a report on Hassan Rouhani's trip to Urmia and quoted the president as saying: "It is not an art to unite our enemies." Arman newspaper also dedicated its front page to Hassan Rouhani's speech in Urmia, quoting him as saying: "The existence of differences among the branches and pillars of the country is an illusion." The issuance of "sentences for the defendants in the three-thousand-billion corruption case" is the headline of Etemad newspaper, which reported that the spokesperson of the judiciary announced sentences for 41 other defendants in this case, the details of which have not been disclosed. The Law newspaper has a report on "the wood smuggling mafia in Iran," stating: "The wood smuggling mafia is ravaging the forests of Iran; a mafia that in recent years no longer secretly cuts down trees but openly cuts down thousands of trees in front of the eyes of officials without any consequences." Najmeh Jamshidi in the Law newspaper wrote: "A mafia that beheaded Engineer Piravi, the former head of natural resources in Masal, in the Hefteh Daghaneh forests, and the same mafia that shot Rashid Ghafari in the Joکندan region in front of his little daughter, and 'repeating incidents like the murder of Reza Arghavan, a contract ranger of natural resources, or the bitter story of the daughter of the head of the anti-smuggling goods headquarters in Miyandoab, who was left with her head cut off in front of the University of Medical Sciences in Ardabil in 2003' cannot be forgotten, and 'wood smugglers used this tactic to threaten another ranger in the area that if his daughter goes to university, the same fate will befall her.'"