Two City Council Members: Conservatives Misused Protest Letter Against ArchiNews

Two reformist members of the Tehran City Council confirmed signing a letter protesting against the whistleblower website regarding the transfer of municipal properties and requesting 'investigation' into this disclosure by 'competent authorities.' They stated that this letter did not mean filing a complaint against the ArchiNews website and that conservatives in the council had 'misused' it. According to ILNA news agency, Mohsen Sarikh, a member of the Tehran City Council, on Thursday, September 11, commented on the news about a complaint letter signed by 28 council members against ArchiNews, saying, 'This letter was signed last Sunday, and at that time, no one was aware of the subject of the report by the General Inspection Organization and the nature of the discussion was general.' Mr. Sarikh mentioned that signing this type of letter was a 'show of sympathy' for members of the Tehran City Council, including Masoumeh Abad, whose names were published on this website as recipients of houses from the municipality. He emphasized that this letter was supposed to be read only in the Tehran City Council meeting and that the signatories had not filed a complaint against ArchiNews. The 28 members of the Tehran City Council, in a letter to Mehdi Chamran, the chairman of the Tehran City Council, without mentioning the name of the ArchiNews website, called the publication of the names of several council members as recipients of houses from the municipality 'unethical' and requested that this matter be sent to 'competent authorities' for 'investigation.' The letter stated: 'We, the undersigned, while respecting the law and the point that any violation, regardless of who committed it and in what capacity, must be addressed in judicial authorities, remind that today, with the publication of falsehoods, the personal reputation of members has been tarnished, and this supervisory and legislative body has been harmed, and while condemning this unethical action against the members of the City Council, we appreciate that the matter be sent for investigation to the competent authorities.' In addition to the conservatives in the Tehran City Council, several reformist figures from the council, including Ahmad Masjedjamei, Minister of Culture in the Khatami administration, Ismail Doosti, a member of the National Trust Party, Mohsen Sarikh, a member of the Islamic Labor Party, Mohammad Haqani, Valiollah Shujaipourian, and Mohammad Mehdi Tondgouyan also signed this letter. On Wednesday, September 10, Mehdi Chamran, the chairman of the Tehran City Council, based on this letter, requested in a letter to the head of the judiciary to pursue the issue of the publication of the names of council members as recipients of houses from the municipality. On the same day, the ArchiNews website became inaccessible. A day earlier, Yashar Soltani, the editor-in-chief of this website, reported that he had been summoned to court following a complaint from the chairman of the City Council and the mayor of Tehran. The signing of the letter by several reformist figures from the Tehran City Council was also reflected on social media. Meanwhile, Mohammad Mehdi Tondgouyan, a member of the City Council and one of the signatories of this letter, on Thursday issued a new letter apologizing to 'informative media' and announced that this letter had been 'misused and unethically exploited by the conservative faction.' He emphasized that the main goal of the reformist signatories of this letter was 'to defend the dignity of the council and not to seek filtering and creating restrictions for this site.' In recent days, the ArchiNews website published a letter from the General Inspection Organization indicating that the Tehran municipality had illegally sold 200 municipal properties 'at an unreal price' and 'very low,' with a '50 percent' discount and in '60-month' installments to some managers of this institution and other individuals affiliated with or close to the mayor of Tehran. According to this report, Mohsen Pirhadi, Elaheh Rashtgoo, Masoumeh Abad, Hadi Saei, and Abolfazl Ghanavati are among the Tehran City Council members who received properties in northern Tehran using these discounts. Mahmoud Sadeghi, a representative of Tehran in the parliament, reported that a proposal for investigation into the Tehran municipality was submitted to the parliament's presiding board on Tuesday, September 9. Meanwhile, Kazem Palizdar, the secretary of the Economic Corruption Combat Coordination Headquarters, announced on Thursday that this headquarters is examining the issue of 'violations' in the Tehran municipality. He added, 'Many claim that these published reports are incorrect. Therefore, we must investigate the dimensions of this case.' According to news websites and statements from some members of the Tehran City Council, in addition to municipal managers and city council members, the names of Ali Afrashteh, the executive deputy of the parliament, Nabiollah Ahmadi, a representative from Darab in the ninth parliament, and Kamran Najafzadeh and Iman Morati, two journalists from state television, have also been mentioned as individuals who received houses from the Tehran municipality with discounts. These individuals have not responded to these reports. However, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, the mayor of Tehran, on Wednesday described the report in a letter to the Attorney General as 'distorted' and wrote that the head of the General Inspection Organization also called it 'preliminary and incomplete.'