Critics of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi want to know why he has not followed through on his promise to investigate rampant corruption among government officials that has led to a number of recent scandals.
Instead, the government has redoubled its efforts to force women to wear the hijab and has sent its notorious “morality police” into the streets to harass and intimidate women.
The morality police's street patrols are known in Iran as Guidance Patrols (Gasht-e Ershad).The public is highly critical of recent developments. Return of the Patrol The hijab law will be enforced under a plan led by the Ministry of Interior called the Noor (Light) Plan.
Mahusa Amini lost her life in September 2022 at the age of 22 while in the custody of the morality police. Amini's death sparked months of nationwide protests and widespread defiance of the hijab mandate. Some commentators in Tehran now say there will never be a return to the situation before 2022, when nearly all women wore headscarves in public.
Raisi's government has become a supporter of guided patrols, completely forgetting its campaign promise to abolish them, said a May 1 editorial in the reformist Shaar newspaper, criticizing the patrol's return to full force.
A May 1 editorial in the Shaar newspaper harshly criticized the Raisi government for accepting and dismantling hijab guidance patrols, reneging on its election promise and sanctioning the reinstatement of street patrols.
Raisi made this promise during his 2021 election campaign. Official media outlets such as the government's mouthpiece, the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), claim that the “Administrative Guidance Patrol” has made “80 percent progress” in assessing and monitoring the government. Government administrator performance over the past two years.
The government had promised to set up a special investigation unit as a “guidance patrol” to crack down on corruption, but no verifiable information has emerged to prove that an investigation has actually taken place.
Hassan Darvisyan, who was appointed by Raisi as special inspector general to oversee anti-corruption patrols, revealed several months ago that the government had dismissed more than 90 officials for misconduct or incompetence. These included officials appointed by both the previous government and the Raisi government.
In response to the recent public outcry, Darvisian insisted Thursday that the patrol's mission was carried out strictly within the “people's government.” But critics argue that rather than fighting corruption and inefficiency, the government is focused on stamping out dissent in order to tighten hardliners' control over state institutions, including universities. .
The government has struggled to convince the public that its anti-corruption claims are sincere due to several large-scale corruption cases, including: $3.5 billion Debsh Tee scandal Other scandals have so far not been prosecuted or made transparent.
“Rather than forcing women and girls into vans and causing harrowing incidents like the sad case of Martha Amini, the government should have taken action against the government officials who committed the wrongdoing. [death in the custody of morality police]” the Naser Khabal news website said in an unsourced editorial last week, criticizing the government for allowing massive corruption to continue unchecked due to political considerations.
The article also highlighted that despite the government's efforts to combat corruption, inefficiency and negligence, corruption allegations against one of Tehran's Friday Imams, Kazem Sedighi, have recently been overlooked.
Last month, undeniable evidence emerged implicating Sedighi in the illegal acquisition of $20 million worth of land north of Tehran. Despite this, he was not subject to legal action or dismissal. Instead, after the revelation, he simply admitted that he had been “careless” and things returned to normal.
The revelations of Mr. Sedighi's land-buying scandal, brought to light by a whistleblower, sparked outrage in Iran. Initially, Sedighi denied his involvement and claimed that his signature on the deed was forged.
“Instead [of taking action against Sedighi]once again they dragged the screaming women and girls underground. [police vans,]” wrote Nazer Khabar, adding that the experience of using the “morality police” was a repeated failure of the authorities.
