Around Iran This Week

In Iran this week, authorities arrest two for insulting the Revolutionary Guards on Facebook (and warn Iranians to behave themselves online); academics in Hamedan write to Rouhani seeking qualified deans and return to the pre-Ahmadinejad climate of higher education; laid-off steel workers in Kordestan demand their back pay; an MP beseeches the government to pay pensions to 82,000 retired steel workers; and Ardebil executes 18 for drug trafficking. 

Two Arrested in Semnan For Ridiculing Pasdaran on Facebook
The head of the Ministry of Information and Communications Technology in Iran, Major Ali Mirahmadi, has reported the arrest of two individuals who have allegedly slandered Revolutionary Guards officials by posting “offensive material” on a Facebook page. “Our officers had come across a page in the social network Facebook that was designed to ridicule  and slander the heads of the Revolutionary Guards,” Mirahmadi said at a press conference in Semnan. “The description and address of these website designers led us to a 45 year old male and a 35 year old female in Semnan province and with the cooperation of the judiciary, they are now in police custody.” Mirahmadi said that internet surveillance is the most important task of his ministry, and warned Iranians to behave properly online, as  “the police are monitoring everything that is transpiring on cyberspace.”

Hamedan Professors Seek Reform of Higher Education
Faculty members at Boali Sina University in the province of Hamedan have submitted a letter to president elect Hasan Rouhani requesting that the culture of academia be returned to the way it was a few years ago.  In the letter published in Beedargard Weekly, 116 Boali Sina academics ask for “special attention to higher education in the country, and the selections of qualified deans who are scholarly, experienced and established and who have come from an academic background, accepted by the majority of the professors, [and have expertise] in the field science, research and technology.” The academics congratulated Rouhani on his election, expressed hope for “...an economic boom, cultural and political development and reformation of domestic and international policies turning the wheels of the administration of the country toward national interests.”

Kordestan Steel Workers, Now Jobless, Take Protest to Tehran
Laid-off workers at the Zagros Steel Company workers in the province of Kordestan gathered earlier this week on Tehran's Pasteur Ave, demanding their jobs back and three months' back pay they say they are due. The 335 workers began demonstrating in Kordestan on 11 July, and their leader told Ilna News: “These workers who have a 10 to 23 year tenure with this plant will not be able to find work at their age, especially with the current state of the economy and the high rate of unemployed amongst the youth.” He said the owner's objective was to shut down the factory without regard for its longtime workers. Zagros Steel Company owner Ebrahim MilaBigi told Ilna News that the company was forced to downsize by laying off 335 workers due to a lack of operating profit and the consequent financial constraints. 

Retired government workers' pension remains unpaid
MP Kamal Alipoor Khonakdari complained on the opening day of parliament early this week that 82,000 retired governmental steel workers have not received their pensions for the past three months. “It must be told that correspondence with the President, his Vice President and the Minister of Mining and Industry and Finance has been to no avail,” Khonakdari said, calling the situation “abominable.”

Ardebil Executes 18 for Drug Trafficking
There is a rise in execution of drug traffickers in the northeastern province of Ardebil as 18 people have been executed in the past week, Tehran Pars reports.  Twenty two others convicted of drug possession with intent to distribute are on death row awaiting death by hanging.  Gholamreza Rezaii, the chief justice of Ardebil Province through Ardebil's central court's public relations department has reported the an increase of cultivation of narcotic in the bordering country of Afghanistan, as the efforts of Iran's law enforcement in combating drug trafficking through the southeastern borders of Iran has witnessed a 1,925% increase.  “We will witness the impressive deterrence in the production and distribution of narcotics in the country in the near future,” Chief Rezaii reported through the court's public relations department.