{"id":263363,"date":"2022-09-05T10:40:01","date_gmt":"2022-09-05T08:40:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/?p=263363"},"modified":"2023-02-06T16:40:11","modified_gmt":"2023-02-06T15:40:11","slug":"iran-mullahs-denial-of-corruption-falls-flat-amidst-recurring-popular-uprisings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/news\/iran-mullahs-denial-of-corruption-falls-flat-amidst-recurring-popular-uprisings\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran Mullahs\u2019 Denial of Corruption Falls Flat Amidst Recurring Popular Uprisings"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Mobarakeh-Steel-factory.heic\"
Mobarakeh Steel Company Facilities in Isfahan<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Last month, the Tehran Stock Exchange suspended trading of shares in Mohbarakeh Steel Company<\/a>, the second most highly-valued entity on the exchange. The Iranian company is the largest steel plant in the entire Middle East\/North Africa region. It is also a source of shameless, staggering financial corruption.<\/p>\n

A damning August report by the regime\u2019s parliament revealed that Mohbarakeh\u2019s leadership had embezzled the equivalent of 5.6 billion US dollars by the time their actions were discovered. The perpetrators of that financial crime were ostensibly employees of private industry, but Mohbarakeh, like many of Iran\u2019s largest companies, is better described as quasi-state owned, with managers being appointed by senior state officials.<\/p>\n

It should come as no surprise that regime-affiliated entities were among the beneficiaries of the embezzlement scheme. Substantial portions of the missing cash were transferred to the regime\u2019s Revolutionary Guards, as well as the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, and at least one state media outlet. Portions also went directly to the offices of Friday \u201cprayer leaders,\u201d who function as local mouthpieces for the theocratic dictatorship throughout the country.<\/p>\n

While these entities were steadily acquiring stolen wealth, the economic situation for ordinary Iranians was growing worse all the time. Ever-rising levels of poverty and unemployment have been major factors in at least nine anti-government uprisings that have taken place in Iran since the start of 2018.<\/p>\n

In November 2019<\/a>, for instance, a sharp spike in government-set gasoline prices prompted immediate, simultaneous protests in nearly 200 cities and towns, meeting a violent crackdown from regime authorities who fired into crowds and killed 1,500 people before starting a campaign of systematic torture against many of those who were detained during the unrest.<\/p>\n

It was a testament to the severity of domestic crises at the time that unrest did not stop for long in the wake of that crackdown. And over time, the crackdown would come to stand out as a testament to the extent of the regime\u2019s commitment to defending its own culture of corruption.<\/p>\n

In June 2021, Ebrahim Raisi,<\/a> the man who had been in charge of the judiciary two years earlier, was officially appointed as president of the regime following his endorsement by the regime\u2019s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. He rose to the presidency while countless activists and victims of the regime\u2019s prior repression condemned him as the \u201cbutcher of Tehran.\u201d The label derived partly from his role in the 2019 crackdown but mostly from his participation in the massacre of 30,000 political prisoners during the summer of 1988.<\/p>\n

Raisi\u2019s appointment to the presidency was more of an endorsement of this. The regime was and remained rattled by the escalation in popular unrest, and Khamenei no doubt expected that the \u201cbutcher\u201d president would intimidate the public into quieting their grievances over issues like poverty, inflation, and systemic corruption spanning both government and the so-called private sector.<\/p>\n

The strategy has been ineffective so far, and in fact, Raisi\u2019s ascension to the presidency has only resulted in more activities \u201cResistance Units\u201d to condemn him by name while also repeating well-established slogans like \u201cdeath to the dictator\u201d, which communicate popular demands for the supreme leader\u2019s ouster and the wholesale replacement of Iran\u2019s theocratic regime.<\/p>\n

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Ebrahim Raisi\u2019s failure to fix Iran\u2019s economy<\/div><\/div>
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