Report claims widespread corruption under 12-year leadership of Mayor Qalibaf

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A city councillor has said that the local government of Iran’s capital Tehran is missing more than $5 billion.

Councilor Majid Farahani claims that the revenues disappeared during the tenure of Mayor Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf (pictured) from 2005 to 2017.

Qalibaf, a high-ranking officer of the Revolutionary Guards before going into politics, ran unsucessfully for President in 2013. He was a candidate until the last minute in 2017, pulling out in favor of the conservative cleric Ebrahim Raisi in a failed attempt to block President Hassan Rouhani.

On Sunday, Tehran’s current mayor Mohammad Ali Najafi delivered a report to the City Council listing “violation” in the Qalibaf era.

Farahani then said:

There is 200 trillion rials [about $5 billion] difference between the municipality’s income and expenses related to the 12 years of Qalibaf’s tenure as mayor.

Some say that it has been used for paying the municipality’s overdue debts but where was it registered? Isn’t there any books and accountancy?

The councillor claimed, citing Najafi’s report, that up to $14 billion may be unaccounted for. He asserted that 1/3 of the city’s clients revealed they were asked to act against the law and regulations, including through the payments of bribes.

Najafi’s report said Qalibaf and his staff were “spending municipality funds in last May’s Presidential election…suddenly employing 13,000 new personnel”, “arbitrarily giving away 674 real estate [holdings]”, and “cheating” in management of the Municipality Staff Deposit Fund.

Mayor Najafi said in October that a special committee had been formed to investigate the “astronomical property sellout”, but so far there has been no news of any action.

Tehran Denies Negotiations Over Ballistic Missile Program

Iranian officials have loudly denied the claim of the German Foreign Ministry that negotiations are underway over Iran’s ballistic missiles program.

In a report in The Financial Times, the Germans said that Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif agreed to the discussions last week, when he visited EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini and UK, German, and French counterparts in Brussels. German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel then briefed US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

The Iranian Defense Minister, Gen. Amir Hatami, insisted, “Iran has had no discussions on its missile program nor is it going to have any.”

Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi said the report was “unfounded” as “the Islamic Republic does not allow any interference in its domestic affairs and defensive policies, especially its missile program”.

Iran has been trying to detach the Europeans from the US as the Trump Administration threatens more sanctions and demands renegotiation of the July 2015 nuclear deal. However, the EU and the European signatories have said that they want to discuss a separate agreement covering ballistic missile testing and development.

See Iran Daily, Jan 14: Tehran Gets Widespread Backing for Nuclear Deal Following Trump Ultimatum

Supreme Leader Seizes on Trump’s “Shithole” Remarks

The Supreme Leader has taken propaganda advantage of Donald Trump’s racist comments about people from “shithole countries” and regions such as Haiti, El Salvador, and Africa.

Ayatollah Khamenei’s office used Twitter for a broadside against the US on Tuesday:

In a speech in Tehran, Khamenei denounced Washington for hypocrisy of saying they are “fighting terrorism, while they openly support the terrorist Zionist regime”.

Trump made his remarks last Thursday in a meeting on immigration with Republican and Democratic legislators.

Families: No News About Detained Students

Families of students seized during recent protests across Iran say they have received no news about the detainees.

The relatives of Ehsan Mohammadi, Soheil Aghazadeh, Leila Hosseinzadeh, and Ehsan Darvish expressed their concerns in interviews with Radio Farda.

Ehsan Mohammadi and Leila Hosseinzadeh were arrested on January 1, and Soheil Aghazadeh and Sina Darvish were detained on January 4.

About 100 other students were held during the same period. Some have been released on bail but others remain behind bar.

A friend of Hosseinzadeh said the anthropology student is not in Tehran’s Evin Prison and it is unclear who arrested her. The source said the family believes Tehran University officials have not pursued the case.

More than 40 reformist MPs have signed letters asking President Hassan Rouhani and head of judiciary Sadeq Larijani to soon free all detainees, especially female students, according to MP Mahmoud Sadeghi.

Up to five detainees died in custody during the protests, which surged in Mashhad on December 28 and soon spread across the country.

On Sunday, more than 30 student associations demanding the release of the detainees, accusing authorities of taking advantage of the protests to crack down on students and silence their voices.

More than 1,500 students of the Tehran University of Medical Sciences have signed a statement condemning the detentions.

But Fars News, the outlet of the Revolutionary Guards, indicates the detentions are continuing. It wrote on Tuesday that four women were arrested in Isfahan because they received orders from the anti-revolutionary forces outside the country”.

Officials said the women were part of the online movement “My Stealthy Freedom”, launched in 2014 by activist Masih Alinejad, for women to celebrate their freedom of choice by posting their photographs, including without the mandatory head covering of hijab.