The strange paradox of "having an absolute province" and "being a critic of corruption in the system"! / On the sidelines of today's anti-corruption speeches of the leadership

Mehdi Nasiri

The late Kiyomarth Saberi once wrote a satire in Gol Agha magazine with the following theme:
"The head of the executive asked for reforms in the government. The head of the judiciary asked for reforms in the judicial system. The speaker of the parliament asked for reforms in the legislative branch."
Of course, that day Gul Agha did not dare to write, "Leadership demanded reforms in the system."

The content of the attached video containing the words of the leader today is actually this: the leader has complained about the delay in dealing with corruption and requested to deal with corruption by institutions that are all directly or indirectly appointed and under the orders and requirements of his followers. .

Only one of the dozens of institutions under the leadership, called the Supreme Council of National Security, is enough to kill any corrupt person with one resolution. But why hasn't something like this happened in thirty years, and after thirty years, the leadership is still critical and demanding to deal with corruption?

How can the security institutions prevent Seyyed Mohammad Khatami from attending the sermon for the marriage of the daughter of Mr. Shamkhani, the secretary of the same council, based on the resolution of the Supreme National Security Council, but they cannot deal with bank debtors and embezzlers worth thousands of billions of tomans?!

In 1997, when I was publishing "Sobh", its most important line of work was dealing with administrative and financial corruption, which had opened up in Mr. Hashemi's government after the war and the Mousavi government (although it was insignificant compared to today's corruption). And as a journalist, I felt threatened that day and said to myself that if this newly opened hole in the matter of corruption is not taken with a shovel today, it cannot be taken with a shovel tomorrow, and therefore from the age of the universe, I was following the criticism of administrative and financial violations, and then in the morning it became widespread.

But in the meantime, a strange thing happened. Two solid investigative reports on the violations of two ministries (Ministry of Communications and Power) of the construction government were published in Sobeh, and in the complaint of the Minister of Communications, the content of Sobeh's report was confirmed by the jury of the court. Regarding the report of the Ministry of Energy, after the publication of the first part of the report, the minister complained to the leadership and I defended the morning report in a private meeting with the leadership (about thirty minutes) and the leadership announced that it prevented the publication of the morning reports. It cannot be done and the said report was continued in three other issues, but surprisingly, no action was taken by the supervisory and judicial bodies under the supervision of the leadership to deal with the offending officials.

No one told the manager in charge of Sobh what these reports were, and no one went to the officials of the two ministries of communication and energy to find out what these stories are.

In that private meeting with the leader, the recording of which must be in his office, I started my conversation with Mr. Khamenei as follows:
"Hazrat Agha! The problem of the Islamic Republic is not that someone is walking, but that someone is walking the road."

After those two completely professional reports and the lack of interaction between the responsible bodies and the leader who were fully aware of it, I became doubtful and disappointed about continuing the press work, and I said to myself that in report after report and news after news You publish about corruption with bloodshed and risk, but the system does not react or follow up, it will make corruption ugly, and I am not legally and rationally allowed to continue it.

In 1999, when after returning to Qom for a year and continuing my education while publishing Sobh in Tehran, my decision to close down the publication became serious, I was called for congregational prayer one night with the leadership. After the prayer, in a gathering of several people, where my dear friend, Mr. Seyed Mehdi Shujaei, the director of Nistan magazine, was also present, and he was also disappointed with the work of the press, and he decided to close down, the leader told both of us, I heard that you want to close down your magazine, I am worried to hear this news. Then he added: I see the morning regularly and it is in the arms and wings of my children. You should not close.

As I had a lot of complaints, I preferred not to say a word and a few months later I closed the morning despite the support and serious follow-up of the leadership.

And this was the beginning of my angle with the Islamic Republic, which today has opened and intensified as much as the angle of corruption in the system.

And now that 26 years have passed since that important but fruitless meeting with the leadership, I still see him as a critic and claimant of corruption in the system, I find an indescribable feeling!

2023 April 29