In the Provinces This Week: No Sense of Humor For Satire and Statue Wars

This week in Iran, Shia clergy imprison a Sunni cleric, five drug traffickers are hanged in Qom, sanctions and mismanagement continue punishing the vulnerable, officials shut down a Kerman newspaper, and the forces of nationalism and Islamism collide in Bushehr over the fate of a public square. 

Kerman Authorities Ban Publication Over Satirical Article

After four days of conservative-led media attacks against Negin-e Kerman, authorities shut down the publication pending charges of insulting "Islam, the Koran, sanctity, and values." The controversy erupted after a satirical piece entitled "Where is Abroad?" targeted Iranian conservatives and the country's authorities. According to Hejrat News, a number of cultural and religious activists, including affiliates of Kerman's Hezbollah vigilante group, gathered outside the newspaper's office in protest. Owner Abbas Karimzadeh told demonstrators "I will not defend the article, but does anyone really read local newspapers? They get placed on newsstands for free but no one actually reads them!"

Qom Executes Five Convicted Drug Traffickers

Authorities in Qom executed five men convicted on drug trafficking charges in Qom this week, according to Qom News. "The case against these individuals was strong and at one point they even requested amnesty, but it was rejected. One of them was indicted on possession of 15 kilograms of crack, while possession of 30 grams is enough to legally warrant the death penalty," Qom's chief prosecutor Mostafa Ganji said during a press conference Saturday. He added, "One of the offenders was found in possession of 30 kilos of heroin while another was found guilty of selling two kilos of crack and assisting in the sale of an additional three kilos. All five men were hanged together this morning."

Sanctions and Mismanagement Cause Nutritional Scarcity Across Provinces

Baby formula in the province of Bushehr is in scarce supply, according to the Persian Gulf News Agency. The shortage and skyrocketing prices have led many families fearing malnutrition to order baby formula from other provinces. Yahya Rezaei, deputy of the Bushehr University of Health and Science, explained in an interview with ILNA, "Unattainability of infant formula products is not limited to Bushehr Province alone." He added, "As long as allocation of the products are based on provincial population and not birthrates, the problem will persist." Mismanagement on the issue hits particularly hard at the moment as even domestically produced baby formula depends on basic imported ingredients which sanctions have made difficult to obtain.

Nationalist Fighter and Islamic Revolutionary Battle For The Soul Of A City

A statue commemorating a celebrated anti-colonial war hero in Borazjan was set up in the city's main public square only to be taken down hours later by the county's conservative governor, Nasim Jonoob reports. The memorial to Ghazanfar Saltaneh, a key figure in the popular southern resistance that repelled Britain's invasion in 1915, was taken down due to its placement in Shahid Chamran Square, named after Mostafa Chamran, one of the Islamic Revolution's early leaders who commanded the Revolutionary Guards and helped create Shia militias in southern Lebanon. The taking down of the statue met with widespread protest by local residents, including writers, newspaper columnists, and cultural activists. Following the uproar, a number of families who lost loved ones in the Iran-Iraq War expressed support for the statue’s removal, pitting both sides against each other in the heart of Ghazanfar Saltaneh's city of birth. Borazjan's mayor and city council insist that the monument will be set up once again, but Dashtestan County's conservative governor remains defiant, declaring, "As long I'm alive I will not allow any insult toward the personality [of Mostafa Chamran]." A number of Bushehr's leading civil society activists have written a letter to Hassan Rouhani requesting the president’s help in settling the dispute.

Shia Clergy Court Sentences Sunni Cleric to Six Years in Prison

In a ruling by the Special Clerical Court of Tabriz this week, a Sunni cleric and Friday prayer leader in West Azerbaijan Province was sentenced to six years in prison and permanently barred from wearing clerical clothing. According to reports from the Mukrian news agency, Abdolsalam Golnavaz, Sunni Friday prayer leader of Sardasht, faced trial without an attorney on Monday and spoke in his own defense for three hours. The cleric was charged with "criticizing authorities in Kurdistan Province as a means of incitement" as well as "propagating Sunni views aimed at creating sectarian conflict, colluding with anti-government parties, and membership in the banned Maktab-e Koran school" founded by deceased Kurdish nationalist Ahmad Muftizadeh. The special court comprised exclusively of Shia clergy, functions independently of Iran's judicial system and answers only to the Supreme Leader.