MP speaks out against suppression of opponents by Iran’s mullahs

Noura Bendari

Iran’s mullahs keep ranting on, repeating empty slogans that never materialize into realities. The regime of the Islamic Republic works tooth and nail to spread terrorism, not only outside Iran, but also inside it. This shows the enormity of suffering the Iranian people sustain because of the conduct of the bunch of criminals ruling their country.

Under attack

Iranian parliament member, Parvaneh Salahshouri, known to be a reformist lawmaker, said recently that economic corruption in her country has political roots.

Depriving Iranian women of their rights, she said, is another facet of this political corruption.

She raised questions about the reasons for failure in solving important social problems, such as poverty and unemployment.

“Inequality among Iranians, when it comes to political, cultural, and economic rights, is political corruption too,” Salahshouri said.

She warned in an interview with the website of the Iranian parliament on October 7 that taking corruption lightly would threaten the presence of the Iranian regime as a whole, at a time there is growing anger among different classes of the Iranian society.

The regime’s slogans about fighting corruption will convince nobody as long as the members of the public are not able to express themselves freely, Salahshouri said.

Threats, arrest

Salahshouri objected to the intimidation and arrest of Iranian protesters, banning the criticism of government officials and institutions in the media and restrictions on the right to peaceful assembly, in the light of article no. 27 of the Iranian constitution.

She mentioned a large number of Iranian opposition figures placed under house arrest for years now, even without trials.

She alluded to the failure of the Iranian judiciary in supporting civilian freedoms, the achievement of justice and preventing crime, according to article no. 156 of the Iranian constitution, which has been in force since 1979.

Wasted rights

She said the Iranian judiciary sentences teenagers to death, even as her country had signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as well as the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

She added that the courts also issue heavy verdicts against civilian activists.

Iran brims with corruption. Some of the country’s anti-corruption institutions are corrupt themselves.

There is also corruption inside institutions that are not subject to parliamentary or governmental oversight because they are directly linked to Iran’s Supreme Guide Ali Khamenei.

Nevertheless, Salahshouri staged an unprecedented attack on the Iranian Revolutionary Corpse in the past years. She also attacked Iranian police, against the background of the political and economic crises that rocked Iran in the past years.

In September 2018, she called for holding a public referendum on the legality of the status of the agency responsible for selecting Iran’s supreme guides as well as the validity of supervision over the conduct of the supreme guide.

Suppression

Iranian affairs specialist at Egyptian think tank Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, Ahmed Qabal, said Salahshouri had precisely described the nature of the Iranian regime by talking about political corruption in her country.

This regime, he said, depends on anti-corruption slogans to deceive the public.

He expressed fears in an interview with The Reference from the possible suppression of the Iranian lawmaker.

“She always lashes out at the deprivation of Iranian women of their rights and rampant social problems in Iran,” Qabal said. “She also criticized her country’s military interference in other countries, attributing her country’s economic problems to this interference.”