Ali Azadi writes for EA:


While much of the world has been watching the nuclear talks between Iran and the 5+1 Powers, wondering if an agreement will be reached by July 7, many Iranians have been considering the next developments: can President Rouhani use the boost from a deal to return to his campaign promises to open up political and social space inside the Islamic Republic?

Last weekend, we had a snapshot of that forthcoming battle, as the heads of the three Government branches — Rouhani, head of judiciary Sadegh Larijani, and Speaker of Parliament Ali Larijani — spoke at a conference commemorating the judiciary’s work.

Opening the conference, Rouhani emphasized the important role of the judiciary for national security However, he did not end there: he asked the organisation to “firstly treat everyone equally”. Then he explained that judicial officials should differentiate between “political offenses” and “national security offenses”, both to “increase vitality and political participation in the country” and to “enhance the reputation of Iran in the world”.

The message could not be misunderstood. The President was asserting that some people were rightly being pursued by the judiciary for criminal offenses. However, others — Rouhani did not name them — were being detained over social behavior and political activity.

In his 2013 Presidential campaign, Rouhani used that declaration to great effect. He told Iranians that they should be freer to express themselves in public, to communicate and gather information from the Internet, and to walk the streets without fear of arrest for inappropriate fashion or a vague notion of “immorality”. He was so enthused at one point that he declared that all political prisoners should be released.

At times during his Presidency, Rouhani has reacted to hardline criticism by renewing the call for freedom from intimidation and prosecution. In May 2014 he said, “One cannot take people to heaven through force and a whip.” In the autumn, following a series of acid attacks on women in Isfahan, Government ministers warned against vigilante enforcement of “proper” dress and behavior.

However, Rouhani and his allies have been limited in how much they could achieve — or even tried to do so — amid the challenge from hardline opponents, including those in other branches of Government. A series of Higher Education Ministers have been blocked or impeached in the battle over curriculum and staffing at universities. Culture Minister Ali Jannati has been at regular risk of censure as the Government’s intentions to free up the Internet were curbed. While some political prisoners have been released as they neared the end of their sentences, others — notably opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mehdi Karroubi, and Zahra Rahnavard — have not. And more activists, journalists, students, lawyers and unionists have been imprisoned or threatened with detention. Foreign citizens, such as the Iranian-American journalist Jason Rezaian, have also been arrested and put on trial with the prospect of long sentences.

Recently, Iranian public opinion has been galvanized by a series of cultural disputes. Concerts have been banned at the last minute by judicial order, and women have been barred from attendance of sporting events, with the threat of imprisonment if they challenged the restriction.

So Rouhani made a move last Sunday by declaring, “Just like the time of the Prophet and Imam Ali, not until the opposition take violent and armed actions, they should have the freedom to express their disagreements , no matter how sharp their tongue and how bad their acts are.”

Judiciary head Sadegh Larijani immediately hit back. In his own speech, he defended the “judiciary’s confrontation with the Sedition”, saying all the country’s forces — presumably including Rouhani — are obliged to confront “those who are seeking to overthrow the system”.

Larijani continued:

Although I do not want to say that those who began the opposition [after the disputed 2009 Presidential election] were seeking a coup and overthrow [of the regime], they provided the grounds for the anti-Islamic Revolution to protest against the Supreme Leader….

In dealing with the Sedition, there is no comity….Such event should not be allowed to be repeated and then just have a friendly chat with those responsible.

Hours later, judiciary officials met the Supreme leader. Officially, Ayatollah Khamenei appreciated Sadegh Larijani’s “mobility, determination, and Jihadi management”: “We need to confronts the factors such as bribery, threat, and public pressure that endangers the judiciary’s independence.”

The Supreme Leader may have been referring to the specific headline case of the trial and 10-year sentence of Mehdi Hashemi, the son of former President Hashemi Rafsanjani. The prison term was the long-awaited culmination of charges, laid soon after the 2009 Presidential election, that Mehdi Hashemi had committed financial abuses; however, they have also been seen as political pressure on Rafsanjani, the mentor of Rouhani and still the head of the Expediency Council.

But could Khamenei have been putting out his own signals in anticipation of a nuclear deal? Was he buttressing Larijani against any move by Rouhani? Or was he just giving a few kind words to Larijani to balance between his President and his head of judiciary in a perpetual contest for power?

At this point, all that is certain is that the political maneuvers will continue and that there will not be a sudden opening of political and social space in Iran. In an open letter to Rouhani, prominent analyst Sadegh Zibakalam — who has escaped prison so far for his sharp opinions, even though he was handed an 18-month sentence in Jjne 2014 — wrote:

The problem with political activities in our society is not the definition of political crimes or which authority should deal with them.

The main issue is that officials do not tolerate views that oppose their own.