Untold Stories of the Flood in Kon and Solqan from Eyewitness Accounts

The newspaper Etemad, in the front page of its August 4 issue, referring to the President's order to block "released funds," wrote: "Hassan Rouhani ordered that these released foreign exchange resources not enter the market but be spent on infrastructure and production." The newspaper noted that "the President issued new economic directives after the resolution," stating: "At the top of these directives is the name of the blocked funds; funds that this time are to be blocked within the country by the government itself and will not find their way into the market; a significant decision that could prevent the negative impact of merely spending oil money on the economy and consequently the welfare level of the people." According to Etemad, although this order from Hassan Rouhani prohibits the entry of released currencies into the market, "spending these dollars in the production sector can also have negative repercussions for the economy, provided that these funds are spent without preventing the diversion of resources as in the past. Then, analysts say we will fall victim to the resource curse." The Arman newspaper published new details about the "Protection of Hijab and Chastity" plan, which several conservative representatives of the ninth parliament have drafted and signed, imposing new penalties including "fines" and "educational courses" for citizens accused of "bad hijab." The Etemad newspaper reported on a failed suicide attempt by the suspect in the murder of an Ardebil doctor, stating: "The murderer of the Ardebil doctor self-harmed in custody." The Shahrvand newspaper, in a report titled "Flood of Mourning in a Alley," discussed the deaths of five young men from one of Tehran's neighborhoods in the flood on Sunday, July 28, citing an eyewitness about the extensive damages and the unreported number of victims and the unknown fate of the missing persons in this flood. The Shargh newspaper, while reporting on the designation of August 4 as the date for the trial of those responsible for the attack on Ali Motahari in Shiraz, quoted this parliament member saying that several defendants admitted they had "planned" the attack and had "orders." The Aftab Yazd newspaper, while publishing a cartoon of Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei and Ali Saeedlu, quoted Abdolreza Davari saying: "Mashaei has been summoned to court, and the rumor about Saeedlu leaving the country has nothing to do with Ahmadinejad." The Iran newspaper dedicated its front page to the presence of foreign tourists in Iran, emphasizing what it described as "the boom in the tourism industry after the nuclear agreement" and "a golden season for tourism in Iran," reporting that "the UK has removed Iran from the list of high-risk countries for British travelers." "Rental Children, Selling Kids" is the headline of a report by Hamid Hajipour in the Iran newspaper. This report emphasizes that "more than 13,000 working children in the capital are engaged in labor from street corners to brick kilns and neighborhoods like Oudlajan, Herandi, and Shoosh." The Resalat newspaper quoted Sadegh Mahsouli, a conservative figure and Minister of Interior in Ahmadinejad's second government, stating: "Competition among conservatives leads to the victory of the rival." This newspaper also quoted Hossein Fadaei, another conservative figure, about the upcoming parliamentary elections saying: "Our strategy is the coalition of conservatives from Jalili to Larijani." The Javan newspaper, close to the Revolutionary Guards, in its August 4 issue referred to what it called "the efforts of Western media and their domestic followers to award the Nobel Prize to Mohammad Javad Zarif," describing the Nobel Peace Prize as a "criminal's award" and stating: "The Iranian diplomat has no relation to the award of criminals." The new "Protection of Hijab and Chastity" plan in parliament; "Badly veiled individuals will attend classes." The Arman newspaper published new details of the "Protection of Hijab and Chastity" plan, which several conservative representatives of the ninth parliament have drafted and signed, imposing new penalties including "fines" and "educational courses" for citizens accused of "bad hijab." According to this newspaper, Article 6 of the new "Protection of Hijab and Chastity" plan refers to mandatory classes for those accused of bad hijab, stating: "The police are obliged to employ trained female personnel in public places to warn women lacking proper hijab. These officers are required to obtain a commitment from women who violate public decency with inappropriate clothing to participate in educational and counseling courses on chastity and hijab organized by this force. If these individuals refuse to commit or participate in these courses or commit violations of the law after completing the educational courses, they will be fined by the judicial authority from 2 to 10 million rials." Additionally, part of the new plan emphasizes the enforcement and punishment of "bad hijab, fasting violations, harassment, and inappropriate behaviors" in vehicles, stating: "If the driver or passengers of vehicles engage in hijab violations, fasting violations, harassment of women, or inappropriate behaviors against public decency, the officers are obliged to issue a fine of one million rials according to the relevant law. In case of repeated violations, in addition to assigning 10 negative points, the vehicle will be impounded for 72 hours." Non-compliance with Islamic hijab by managers or employees of government offices and organizations will also face penalties such as reprimands and salary deductions. According to Article 2 of this plan, "All employees of executive bodies are subject to the provisions of Article 5 of the Civil Service Management Law in case of violations stated in Clause 20 of the Administrative Violations Investigation Committees (non-compliance with Islamic hijab) will be subject to written reprimands recorded in their employment files, and in case of repetition, will face salary deductions and allowances up to one-third for a period of one month to one year." Article 7 of this nine-article plan addresses the handling and punishment of "installation and repair" of satellite antennas, stating that "the installation and repair of satellite reception equipment is prohibited, and the offender will be fined in the first instance and in case of repetition, will face imprisonment or a maximum fine." Furthermore, Article 8 states: "In buildings that, according to the Apartment Ownership Law, have a building manager, the manager is obliged to collect unauthorized central satellite equipment and issue written warnings to residents, and if no action is taken within one month after the warning, the matter should be reported to the police. Failure to warn residents and report to the police will result in a fine for the building manager." The Arman newspaper referred to this plan as the "worried representatives' plan" and reported that "the worried representatives for chastity and hijab in society signed a plan called the Protection of Hijab and Chastity. A nine-article plan that has received nine objections from the General Directorate of Documents and Legal Review, and upon review by other experts, there may be further objections, including overlaps in responsibilities." According to this newspaper, the names of several conservative representatives or those close to the Stability Front, including Gholamali Haddad-Adel, Rouhollah Hosseinian, Ahmad Salek, Hossein Najabat, Nira Akhavan Bi-Taraf, Laleh Eftekhari, Zahra Tabibzadeh Noori, Hassan Kamran, Mohammad Ali Mousavi, Amir Hossein Qazizadeh Hashemi, and Nasrollah Pezeshkian are among the signatories of this plan, and these representatives have stated that the purpose of drafting such a plan is "to confront manifestations of bad hijab in government offices and organizations and to deal with the phenomena of migration to bad hijab in vehicles." The Arman newspaper also reported that in the justification section of this plan, emphasizing that "the preservation and protection of the sanctity of chastity and hijab is one of the important duties of the government in the field," it stated: "Achieving this goal, in addition to increased efforts and creativity in cultural activities, requires confronting violators of the sanctity of chastity and hijab. Reviewing the relevant laws regarding confronting violators of the sanctity of chastity and hijab shows that the weakness of enforcement and some other legal gaps are among the legislative damages in this area, highlighting the necessity of revising these laws." A failed suicide attempt by the suspect in the murder of an Ardebil doctor in custody. The Etemad newspaper reported on the failed suicide attempt of the suspect in the murder of an Ardebil doctor, stating: "The murderer of the Ardebil doctor self-harmed in custody." Nasser Atabati, the prosecutor of Ardebil, confirmed the news of the "failed suicide" of the suspect in the murder of Dr. Asghar Pirzadeh in an interview with Etemad's Sunday issue, stating: "The suspect self-harmed in custody, but with the timely presence of the officers, this incident ended well." The identity of this suspect has not yet been disclosed, but according to the newspaper, he is a 23-year-old who "lured the victim to his home last Friday" and due to what the Ardebil prosecutor referred to as "personal animosity," stabbed Dr. Asghar Pirzadeh to death. According to Etemad, "the suspect's self-harm occurred while there had previously been reports of a special relationship between the murderer and the Ardebil doctor circulating on social media," but Nasser Atabati, the Ardebil prosecutor, denied these reports, stating: "The rumors about a special relationship between the suspect and the Ardebil doctor are not true, and the details of the case will be announced after the investigations are completed." Reza Laripour, the spokesperson for the Iranian Medical Council, who traveled to Ardebil with a delegation including the head of the Medical Council and other relevant officials to address the incident, stated to Etemad that a meeting was held regarding this incident with the presence of "the head of the Medical Council, security officials, the head of Ardebil intelligence, and the political-security deputy of the Ardebil governorate" and said: "In this meeting held on Saturday morning, it was clarified that this murder had nothing to do with the relationship between the doctor and the patient." The spokesperson for the Medical Council announced that the investigation into the murder of Asghar Pirzadeh is ongoing at the Ardebil police and "the details of the incident will be postponed to the future." The Etemad newspaper reported that the news of the "suspect's self-harm in custody" was confirmed while the uncle of Dr. Asghar Pirzadeh on Saturday discussed the details of the murder of this Ardebil specialist doctor with ILNA news agency, stating: "We are still in shock from this incident. What the relevant authorities have told us is that on the day of the incident, the murderer contacted my nephew as a patient companion, and he, as a doctor, visited his home to examine the patient. At the murderer's house, my nephew was attacked and stabbed in the heart and was taken to the hospital by the same person." The uncle of Asghar Pirzadeh mentioned that "the incident occurred in less than 15 minutes," stating: "My nephew died in the hospital due to the severity of his injuries, and the suspect was arrested. However, various reports have been published in the media about the incident, and people have said different things that have upset the family." The Etemad newspaper reminded that "on Friday, August 1, Asghar Pirzadeh, the only oncologist in Ardebil province, was stabbed by a 23-year-old at the home of one of his patients and suffered severe injuries. The assailant contacted the police and ambulance, and the injured doctor was taken to the hospital but died due to the severity of his injuries. The suspect was arrested by the officers, but his motive for committing the murder remains unclear." According to this newspaper, "the murder of the Ardebil doctor has sparked numerous reactions from national officials, provincial authorities, and the medical community," and Hassan Qazizadeh Hashemi, the Minister of Health, announced after the incident the formation of an inspection team from the ministry's supervision department to investigate the matter and criticized the increase in violence in society due to the lack of organized social relations based on dialogue. Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli, the Minister of Interior, also reacted to this incident by asking the security council of Ardebil province to pursue this incident promptly, and according to Etemad, "some doctors also criticized the lack of job security and urged the health ministry officials to take appropriate measures to prevent similar incidents from recurring." The untold stories of the flood in Kon and Solqan from eyewitness accounts. The Shahrvand newspaper, while publishing a report titled "Flood of Mourning in an Alley," discussed the deaths of five young men from one of Tehran's neighborhoods in the flood on Sunday, July 28, citing an eyewitness about the extensive damages and victims of this flood. Elnaz Mohammadi, a reporter for Shahrvand, wrote about the young men from the "16 Meter Amiri" neighborhood who lost their lives in this flood: there were seven of them; seven friends from the 30 Meter Ji neighborhood, 16 Meter Amiri. It was a Sunday; July 28, at 6 PM, a day after Eid al-Fitr. They had agreed to go to the Kon and Solqan river to take a dip. Two returned early, and "Mohammad," "Mansour," "Ramin," "Farzan," and "Hossein" stayed by the river. Now, out of those five, only one remains; "Hossein." A 25-year-old who now spends his days and nights with one image; "The three hours he was stuck on a tree, watching his friends scream as the water pulled them away from him. Women, men, and children who were no longer alive, and the water swept them from under his feet with haste." Hossein, whose last name is not mentioned in the Shahrvand report, told this newspaper about the moment of the flood on July 28 in Kon and Solqan: "Where we were sitting by the river, many families were sitting. It seemed...