Iranians Slam Parliament Speaker For Family’s Luxury Shopping

The footage of Maghsoudi showed her apparently resisting the arrest of her brother, Hamid-Reza Maghsoudi, who was in her car at a gas station in Boroujerd, Lorestan province, on April 16.

The clip shows Fatemeh Maghsoudi, the city’s parliamentary representative, calling for help and attempting to free her brother from three police officers trying to take him into custody. Hamid-Reza Maghsoudi had been on the run since sentenced to five years in prison in January for selling a property he did not own.

Maghsoudi later claimed the officers had not introduced themselves, making her think he was the victim of an attempted kidnap. But some social media users were outraged and argued that she had not been complying with the law.

In an interview with the Iranian Labour News Agency published Wednesday, Maghsoudi, who is secretary of the women’s faction in parliament, took issue with Tasnim News for describing her as a reformist. She insisted she was a principlist and “completely a follower” of the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf’s wife, daughter and son-in-law arrived at Tehran’s Imam Khomeini airport on Tuesday from Istanbul with apparently a large layette set they bought from Turkey. People at the airport didn’t recognize them at first but when a photo of the family circulated on social media, their identity was revealed, followed by a barrage of criticism, and resurfacing of other alleged corruption cases against the family.

Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf became parliament speaker in 2020 after 'revolutionary principlists' or hardliners swept an engineered election, when most reformists were banned from running as candidates.

The harsh reaction to the incident is because of the hardship most Iranian face with 40-percent inflation and an eight-fold drop in the value of the national currency, impoverishing tens of millions of middle-class people.

Something that added to the controversy was a video of Ghalibaf in the 2017 presidential debates in which he censured a former minister for traveling to Italy to buy baby clothes. “You people think our economy will get better, never!” Ghalibaf is heard saying in the video.

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The word for the layette in Persian is ‘sismuni’ a relic of Sanskrit that has survived in the language from Old Persian. Social media users have added the suffix for political scandals “gate” to it and are sharing the hashtag ‘SismuniGate’ in reference to the Watergate scandal.

In reaction to the latest chapter of Ghalibafs’ scandals, many activists and officials have called for the resignation of the parliament speaker. Reformist political commentator Abbas Abdi, however, says the news is so devastating that as a matter of principle he must resign from all his positions, but his replacement will definitely be worse than him. “So, I do not suggest resignation” he added.

The more important issue here is contradictory behavior by officials, he said, noting that “These paradoxes are not limited to this small case that has been exposed. It has destroyed almost all areas of Iran’s political and social life”.

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Another civil activist, Vahid Ashtari, referring to government policies said it is not possible to preach to people to buy Iranian-made cars and other products, ban the import of home appliances, and send your family to Turkey to buy ‘sismuni’.

University professor and political activist Rahmatollah Bigdeli called for Ghalibaf’s to step aside, saying, "Only Ghalibaf's resignation will erase this stain”.

Ghalibaf's son Elias, criticized the trip by his sister, and said, “My sister and her husband did something that is absolutely wrong, especially in the current economic situation people face”. However, he added his father shouldn’t be judged by the actions of his sister, something also echoed by his media assistant, Mohammad Saeed Ahadian.

Ghalibaf is a household name in many corruption cases in the Islamic Republic. During his term as mayor of the capital Tehran, several of his deputies and people in his close circle were sentenced to 20 to 30 years in prison but the judiciary never prosecuted him, maybe because he is a close relative of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

During the same period, Ghalibaf handed over lands with a total area of 71,397 square meters to his wife’s charity institute in 2011, apart from another 2.5 trillion rials, nearly $100 million at the time.

An audio file of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard commanders discussing massive financial corruption that leaked in February also directly involved Ghalibaf.

Some Iranian social media users say the country’s push to restrict the internet in Iran is aimed at preventing the exposure of such scandals by the Islamic Republic’s authorities and their families – especially their relatives who have been making the best use of their position since President Ebrahim Raisi took office.

Lawmaker Mansour Haghighatpour said on Tuesday that Faezeh Hashemi has crossed the Islamic Republic's "red lines" and "trampled on the country's values and national interests. So much leniency emboldens people like her. I believe that the Islamic Republic must take appropriate punitive action against Faezeh Hashemi and discipline her," he said.

Hashemi is the daughter of former president Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani and a member of the Central Council of the pro-reform Kargozaran-e Sazandegi (Executives of Construction) Party.

Fars news agency affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard on Tuesday called Hashemi a "foot soldier" of the United States while another IRGC-affiliated media outlet, Javan newspaper dubbed her "flagrant" and criticized her party and the Rafsanjani clan for not officially renouncing her.

Hashemi had said during a discussion on the social media app Clubhouse on April 16 that removing the IRGC from the US list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO) was not in Iran's interest.

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Hashemi had argued it is possible that certain factions in the IRGC may be intentionally taking actions to keep the whole entity on the US terrorist list. She cited IRGC's missile attack on Iraq's Kurdish regional capital of Erbil in March and criticized the Guards for boasting about the attack instead of keeping a profile as the country’s defender, posing no threat to others in the region.

She also said the IRGC is constantly broadening both the sphere and scope of its activities in Iran’s economy and politics, making it even harder to stick to its military role. “The only way for the IRGC to return to the barracks is to keep them on the [FTO] sanctions list,” she said.

This is not the first time in recent years that Hashemi has ventured into criticizing the Iranian regime’s core values or positions, espoused by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his hardliner supporters. In January, she said the Islamic Republic was responsible in the killing half a million Syrians with its military intervention in the Syrian civil war.

Hardliner social media users have accused Hashemi of being a traitor to the country, while others including some anti-regime activists have said that her criticism of the regime could only be acceptable when she also admits her father's role in engineering the selection of Ali Khamenei as Supreme Leader in 1989, and later allowing the IRGC to assume an economic role.

Abdolreza Davari, one of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's advisors and confidants said Hashemi was wrong to say the IRGC should not be delisted and considered her remarks "against national security" but defended her right to freedom of expression. "Why should she and her late father be subjected to so many threats, accusations, and abuse instead of her remarks being logically criticized?" Davari tweeted.

Faezeh Hashemi is perhaps the most controversial of Hashemi-Rafsanjani's five children and often targeted by hardliners for her candid criticism of the regime, compulsory hijab, and prosecution of followers of the banned Baha'i faith. She is also the former president of Women's Sports Federation and editor-in-chief of banned reformist Zan newspaper.

Hashemi has been prosecuted for her activities on several occasions and served two six-month prison sentences for "propaganda against the state" and similar charges in 2012 and 2017.

Arian Taherzadeh and Haidar Ali were arrested earlier this month by the FBI when it came to light that they were impersonating Homeland Security agents and had established ties with Secret Service agents, lavishing gifts on them. One agent was a member of First Lady jill Biden’s protection detail.

They were indicted Tuesday on charges of false impersonation of a federal agent and possession of a large-capacity ammunition device. The suspects had a range of law enforcement paraphernalia in their possession when they were arrested, including body armor and surveillance equipment.

Their scheme required a considerable amount of money, and it is not clear how they financed their operation. They offered expensive rent-free apartments, guns, iPhones and other gifts to federal agents.

A judge on April 8 released them from detention on the grounds that prosecutors had not established a foreign connection, but Haidar Ali’s passport shows he had Iranian visas and might have traveled to Iran in recent years.

It is not clear if prosecutors will appeal the decision of the judge to release the suspects into the custody of their families after the grand jury indictment.

Twitter users in Iran reported that some employees also gathered at the ministry's parking area and courtyard chanting slogans against Labor Minister Hojjat Abdolmaleki who had told the press in February that he had fired over 1,000 employees.

Pictures of the protest published by Iranian news outlets including Rouydad24 website, show the employees waiting for the minister to come forward and answer their questions. However, he did not leave his office at the ministry.

Employees also accused Abdolmaleki of launching a publicity to show off his "achievements" despite criticisms by staff and the media over his populist behavior. Some Twitter user published a publicity poster, adding that Abdolmaleki has used the ministry's funds to showcase his performance. Several members of the Iranian parliament have said that Abdolmaleki will be one of the first Raisi ministers to be impeached as soon as the parliament’s leadership allows impeachment motions to be tabled and go forward.

Reports from Tehran say Deputy Labor Minister Mohammad Reza Hosseini tried to calm the protestors, but his effort was not successful. The employees chanted "Payments with Justice" demanding fair pay.

One employee told Rouydad24: "It is ironic that the staff of other government and private companies come to the labor ministry to voice their grievances while its own employees have nowhere to go to seek relief for their grievances."

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Another employee asked: "How can the labor minister manage the situation of unemployment in the country while he cannot sort out the problems in his own ministry?" He reminded that Abdolmaleki promised to quickly create millions of jobs in Iran at low cost, but it never materialized.

Other employees criticized the minister and his aides for putting on a show rather than working to solve staff problems. One employee told reporters that Abdolmaleki made no plans to tackle unemployment in Iran since he assumed office eight months ago. Earlier, Abdolmaleki had said in an odd comment that "Creating jobs was not among the responsibilities of the labor ministry."

Criticism of other economic ministers of the Raisi administration has also been on the rise during the past months. Lawmaker Behrouz Mohebbi on Tuesday harshly criticized Industry Minister Reza Fatemi Amin who is also on the parliament's impeachment list, charging that he has not met any one of the many promises he made before joining the government.

Mohebbi further charged that the managers of car manufacturing companies affiliated with the Ministry of Industry drive foreign cars and do not care about the rising price and falling quality of Iranian-made cars. "If they used Iranian cars, they would have made efforts to improve the quality of domestic products at least for their families' safety," he said.

Mohebbi also criticized the minister for failing to control the car market. According to the media last week, the price of a basic old model compact car called Pride, rose by 400 million rials ($1,600) overnight and reached 2 trillion rials.

Mohebbi said, "when Fatemi Amin's credentials were being reviewed at the parliament, he promised to put an end to the monopoly of the two car makers affiliated with the ministry, to boost production and to improve quality. Some eight months on, none of these promises have materialized." He reminded Fatemi Amin that even Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has acknowledged that people are unhappy about his ministry's performance.