Daily Report for Thursday, August 18, 2016
1
Report for
Thursday,
August 18, 2016 Mordad 28, 1395
Highlights, Page 2 News Briefs, Page 3 Other Stories, Page 3
Iran denies reports on arrest of European diplomats, Page 5 Iran‟s bid to counter vote buying may victimize Rouhani, Page 6
Daily Report for Thursday, August 18, 2016
2 Highlights
An informed source at the Iranian Foreign Ministry dismissed reports on detention of two European diplomats by police forces in a western province of Iran. (See Page 5)
Iranian authorities have finally reached a consensus regarding vote buying and much-needed countermeasures. It is both good for the Rouhani administration, but may be bad timing. (See Page 6)
Daily Report for Thursday, August 18, 2016
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News Briefs
* Etemad newspaper reports that Education Minister Ali Asghar Fani says that there are 126 Iranian schools in 76 countries.
* Mardom Salari newspaper reports that Anti-Drugs Headquarters Director General for Cultural and Preventive Affairs Aref Wahabzadeh says that drug use among women is rising in Iran. The news item does not provide statistics.
* Ebtekar newspaper reports that cars that cause „sound pollution‟ will be fined 400,000 rials in big cities, provincial capitals and intracity rounds and free trade zones, and 300,000 rials in other cities.
* Etemad newspaper reports that police have announced that any and all events that will be hosted in halls and restaurants will be permits from police.
* Etemad newspaper reports that police have disbanded and arrested a group of fake doctors operating in Isfahan.
* Etemad newspaper reports that an official with the Imam Khomeini Relief Fund says that most of the child beggars [in Iran] are foreign nationals.
* Mardom Salari newspaper reports that police have arrested a drug addict thief red handed while he was a robbing a house in Tehran city‟s Qolhak area.
* Aftab News website reports that Tehran police have arrested a man for robbing a taxi driver just for thrills.
* Aftab News website reports that two young girls have committed suicide by jumping from a tall building in northeastern Tehran city for unknown reasons.
Other stories
MPs defend Russian use of Iranian base
Speaker Ali Larijani confirmed military cooperation between his country and the Russian air forces, but meantime, rejected speculations that Tehran has provided Moscow with control over an airbase in Western Iran.
“We should pay attention that Iran has not provided any country with a military base and this fact that we cooperate with Russia, as an ally, on the regional issues, including Syria, doesn‟t mean that we have given a military base to Russia and if the media outlets have raised such a point, it is now rejected,” Larijani said, addressing the Iranian legislators in an open session of the parliament in Tehran on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, MP and the head of Iranian Parliament‟s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission categorically rejected an Israeli media report about Russia‟s deployment of its advanced S-400 missile defense system to an airbase in Hamadan, saying that Nojeh base is not put at Russia‟s disposal.
“Russia has had no deployment to the Islamic Republic of Iran‟s territory,” he went on to say.
He also referred to Russia‟s use of Iranian airbase, and said that Russian planes‟ presence in Hamadan‟s Nojeh airbase is decided by the Supreme National Security Council and falls within the regional cooperation of Iran, Russia, Syria, and Iraq.
“The cooperation is in line with Iran‟s strategy of fight against terrorism, and has no contradiction with Iran‟s Constitution, because Hamadan‟s airbase has neither turned to Russia‟s base, nor has it hosted any fighter jet,”
he said.
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“The only thing happening there is that Russian jet fighters are allowed to receive fuel in this airbase based on bilateral and quadrilateral cooperation,” Boroujerdi said, adding that such cooperation is totally logical within this framework.
Parliament votes to curb
Guardian Council’s authority
State-owned newspaper Iran reports that Iranian parliament has approved “the generalities of a proposal” to limit the Guardian Council‟s power to vet electoral candidates on August 17.
Parliament must still approve the “details”
of the proposal at a later date. The proposal prevents the Guardian Council from disqualifying a candidate after election day if the elections were
“healthy.”
The proposal was prompted by an internal parliamentary inquiry that had asked
“whether the Guardian Council can disqualify a candidate after a healthy vote by the people and after accepting his or her qualifications, thereby annulling the votes.”
Parliament is reacting to the Guardian Council‟s handling of the spring 2016 parliamentary elections.
The Guardian Council previously conducted its vetting process in formal intervals before election day.
The council controversially disqualified a reformist candidate after she had won a seat in the spring 2016 elections, however.
Senior officials including President Hassan Rouhani accused the Guardian Council of overstepping its legal authority by disqualifying a candidate after election day.
Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani rejected a parliamentarian‟s criticism that the proposal would alter Iran‟s electoral laws.
Larijani stated, “The dates in which the Guardian Council announces its opinions on candidates‟ disqualifications are stated precisely in the election law. This inquiry clarifies that issue.”
Deputy Parliament Speaker Ali Motahari stated that the proposal and inquiry are important to prevent the Guardian Council from using the reformist candidate‟s post- elections disqualification as precedent in future elections.
Mehr News Agency reported that 129 parliamentarians voted for the proposal while 63 voted against it.
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Daily Report for Thursday, August 18, 2016
5 Iran denies reports on
arrest of European diplomats
Tasnim News Agency: The two European diplomats were not detained and their trip to the province was made with prior notice, the source said on Tuesday.
The police stopped the vehicle of the diplomats to only check their documents and ID cards, he said, adding that after identification, the diplomats continued on their way.
According to media reports, a security official from the Intelligence Organization of Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) in the western province of Kurdistan said a suspicious car with a diplomatic license plate driving through Saqqez County in Kurdistan Province on August 13 was closely monitored by the security forces and finally stopped in the vicinity of Irankhah village.
Its passengers, who were identified as two notable French and English diplomats, were suspiciously filming military sites and when ordered to stop, they fled the filming location, the official said.
“Preliminary investigations revealed that the two passengers were Sébastien Surun, French political attaché, and Charlotte Lopez, second secretary of the British Embassy in Tehran,” he said.
“After the car was stopped, their camera was seized by the security forces,” he added.
Daily Report for Thursday, August 18, 2016
6 Iran’s bid to counter vote buying
may victimize Rouhani
IRDiplomacy news website: Members of Iran‟s Guardian Council, a constitutional watchdog, are giving unanimous opinions about the possibility of vote buying in the country‟s elections. So far, two of its top members have confirmed reports of what has been a political taboo for so many years.
Reform-oriented politicians including mastermind Saeed Hajjarian and former interior minister Ali-Akbar Mohtashamipour had warned of systematic subreption and distribution of Justice Shares to influence the ballots a few years ago but their warnings were little heard in the wake of the disputed 2009 presidential race.
When the dust settled, the row about vote buying came to fresh light at the heart of a blame-game correspondence between Ahmadinejad and his vice Mohammadreza Rahimi over the latter‟s pack of financial corruptions. When Rahimi was convicted in a case of Iran Insurance Co. embezzlement, being handed a sentence for more than five years in prison, Ahmadinejad‟s bureau issued a statement baling on him that shrugged any links to his tenure under the ninth and tenth administrations. He wrote an open letter in response, revealing how political parties indirectly interfere in parliamentary elections.
“Before any parliamentary election, political factions establish committees to plan and direct the elections … Some principlist figures formed a committee and a decision was made to financially support principlist candidates through nongovernmental aid.
Among the fund donors, someone named Jaber Abdali was introduced to me through some MPs, judicial and executive officials … In sum, he donated 1.2 billion tomans
… that has been paid to almost 170 Majlis candidates,” Rahimi wrote.
Despite Rahimi‟s conviction and the judiciary‟s pledge to investigate the so-called 170-man list, no names came out and the Guardian Council declined to comment. In February 2015, Judiciary spokesman Gholamhossein Mohseni Eje‟i told a weekly presser that a majority of those included in the list were not MPs or even candidates, while a few of them were former MPs or candidates.
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A year later however, Mohammad Bayatian, who represented Bijar in the ninth Majlis, revealed in an interview with Iran‟s Labor News Agency (ILNA) that Rahimi had prepared a fresh 70-man list for the February-2016 parliamentary election from inside the prison. “Most hopefuls backed by Rahimi have run from western and northwestern provinces and they are mostly qualified,” ILNA quoted him as saying.
They cruise with their headlights off, simply passing through the sieve of overseeing bodies, becoming qualified by the guardian council. While backed by huge financial support from Rahimi, they fuel disunity and division, Bayatian added.
Regardless of whether there was a link to Rahimi or not, these remarks proved to carry at least some degree of truth after the election was held. The Guardian Council annulled the election in the southern province of Hormozgan, over what is now known as the involvement of dirty money. And it was apparently so larger in scale than Rahimi could have single-handedly managed.
In fact, part of the dirty money has apparently come from abroad, according to GC Bureau Chief Ali-Akbar Vahidi. “Influential political and social figures of the region”
have also resorted to threatening and luring. “Various reports had been submitted to Hormozgan‟s supervisory panel regarding vote buying, distribution of food supplies, and initiation of dirty money into the election with firm documents that could not be overlooked,” Vahidi told Fars News Agency.
More instances have been revealed across the country including in northwest of the country. Mansour Haghighatpour, former MP, also says that only in Ardabil 18 groups have been jailed for bringing voters in cars and accompanying them to the ballot box.
Each voter has reportedly received 50000 tomans (nearly $16) out in the open.
Interior Ministry had also been alarmed of the use of dirty money in elections, despite the fact that it does not seek public controversies. Iranian media outlets could not turn a blind eye when Interior Minister Rahmani Fazli withdrew his previous warning and declined to pay the names in an open parliamentary session. However, he made it clear that smugglers need supporters and find them among the powerful.
Even the secretary of the highest supervisory authority, Guardian Council, has endorsed these sporadic reports. Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati has spoken of vote buying issues in different stages of the recent parliamentary elections, including in the vetting process, executive measures and on the day of voting. “One of our problems is that vote buying is becoming prevalent and this will lead to a Majlis dominated by
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capitalists and wealthy people, and that means only those with more money could achieve entry into Majlis”.
Two weeks ago, Guardian Council spokesman Abbas-Ali Kadkhodaei told a news conference that law enforcement on such offences is minimal, temporal and slow, having little effect, ILNA reported. He favored prevention to post-offence action, saying the two solutions at hand include e-voting and voter registration.
Such corruptions have been one of the declared concerns of the Rouhani administration. Nearly two years ago, Vice President Eshagh Jahangiri had touched the issue when speaking of the money controlled by imprisoned tycoon Babak Zanjani. “We are not going to be fooled. Some friends are misguiding us to the wrong places after corruption,” he said. However, given the heat expected around next year‟s presidential race, countermeasures by the Guardian Council and other supervisory bodies may tighten the principlist grip over the administration.
