PHOTO: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani
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- Filmmaker Karimi Given 6 Years in Prison, 223 Lashes For Movie About Tehran’s Graffiti
- Picture of Day: Foreign Minister Zarif Honored for Diplomatic Achievements With Statue
Even before its stimulus plan is submitted to Parliament, the Rouhani Government is dampening expectations of any immediate boost to Iran’s troubled economy.
President Rouhani’s senior advisor Mohammad Baqer Nobakht told reporters on Tuesday that the stimulus package for the next six months aims at “exiting a depression while reducing inflation”. The emphasis is on greater investment for growth.
However, Nobakht added, “We did not define lofty goals for this package”, and he dampened expectations of an immediate boost from the nuclear deal with the 5+1 Powers, officially adopted by all sides on Sunday: “We must not forget that sanctions are still in place for the next six months.”
The advisor said that the Government is also planning for a hard upcoming winter as it prepares the budget for 2016-2017.
One prominent MP, Hossein Naghavi Hosseini, has already denounced the plan as one for campaign politics, ahead of February’s elections for Parliament and the Assembly of Experts.
Hosseini, a member of Parliament’s National Security Commission, said, “The administration just wants to make the people ready to vote for the administration’s candidates with the implementation of the economic stimulus package.” He challenged the Government’s claims to have stabilized the economy, which faced more than 40% inflation and a 4.6% fall in GDP when Rouhani took office in August 2013: “The economic wheel of the country now spins the other way.”
In addition to the stimulus proposals, the Government is expected to submit its Development Plan to Parliament next week.
The Government has reduced inflation to less than 15% and brought a small recovery in GDP after 2013’s sharp fall. However, it still faces a fall since 2012 of more than 40% in oil exports, which — despite attempts to diversify Iranian production — still provide the largest share of the country’s revenues.
Filmmaker Karimi Given 6 Years in Prison, 223 Lashes For Movie About Tehran’s Graffiti
Filmmaker Kayvan Karimi has been given a sentence of six years in prison and 223 lashes for “insulting the sacred” and “illegitimate relations”.
Karimi was punished for his 2012 film Neveshtan Rooy-e Shahr (Writing on the City).
Karimi’s trial took place in six sessions that concluded in late September, according to his lawyer, Amir Raeesian.
“All of Mr. Karimi’s films were made within the law. But the indictment says his film ‘Writing on the City’ had scenes that insulted the sacred. But there are no such scenes. The film is only about graffiti writing on Tehran’s walls,” Raeesian said
Writing on the City, produced by Tehran University, is about the history of wall writings and graffiti in Iran’s capital. However, some of the scenes in the film refer to the protests that followed the disputed 2009 Presidential election.
Karimi was arrested and released on bail in 2014 after the film was released.
Picture of Day: Foreign Minister Zarif Honored for Diplomatic Achievements With Statue
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif admires a bust of himself, unveiled in Tehran on Tuesday to honor his diplomatic achievements such as the conclusion of the nuclear deal with the 5+1 Powers:
