Rabiei: Arrest of Individuals in Presidential Institution is Pure Falsehood

The government spokesperson denied reports of the arrest of several people at the presidential institution in connection with the Ruhollah Zam case, the manager of “Amedanews.” This report had been published by the Mashhad representative in parliament, whom Rabiei calls one of the “record-holders of accusations.”

Ali Rabiei responded to the claim made by a member of the Islamic Consultative Assembly regarding the arrest of several people at the presidential institution in connection with Ruhollah Zam, the manager of the Telegram channel Amedanews, denying the report.

The government spokesperson said in his press conference on Monday, October 29, “Some people are record-holders in spreading accusations, and the publication of such matters causes public trust to decline.”

According to IRNA news agency, he expressed hope that judicial authorities would seriously address “baseless accusations in the Amedanews case that cause public concern.”

The Public Relations Department of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps announced on Monday of last week that Ruhollah Zam had been arrested in an “intelligent and multi-faceted operation.”

According to some reports, Iraqi security forces arrested the manager of the Telegram channel Amedanews, who was living in France, after he traveled to Baghdad and handed him over to Iranian officials.

Aftershocks of Ruhollah Zam’s Arrest

Regarding the manner and location of Zam’s arrest, many conflicting reports have been published, and some Iraqi security officials have even denied his entry into the country.

On the Amedanews channel, some internal government news was also published, and it is said that with confessions from the manager of this channel, many of its information sources would be exposed.

Javad Karimi Qodoosi, the Mashhad representative and member of the National Security and Foreign Policy Committee of parliament, claimed on Sunday in a Twitter message that individuals at the presidential institution had been arrested in connection with the Ruhollah Zam case.

The government spokesperson told journalists with a hint directed at Karimi Qodoosi: “One cannot counter Amedanews with Amedanews methods. Amedanews means information fabrication, distortion of minds and mental collapse. The highest function that Amedanews wanted to have is something we also saw in December 2017 in its opposition to the JCPOA. Therefore, considering what Amedanews is, we must try not to move in the direction of that inauspicious phenomenon.”

Karimi Qodoosi’s accusations did not end with the aforementioned tweet and also reached other government officials, including Mahmoud Vaezi, the former Minister of Communications and current Chief of Staff to Hassan Rouhani, and Hessamoddin Ashna, the President’s adviser.

Hessamoddin Ashna responded to the message from the Mashhad representative in parliament, calling him “an operator of the anti-government psychological warfare room,” and wrote on his Twitter account that Karimi Qodoosi’s role in the Amedanews affair should be investigated.

Ali Rabiei referred to this year’s Arbaeen ceremony during his October 29 press conference, saying that the government had made significant efforts to hold it “as grandly as possible.”

The government spokesperson said that during Arbaeen, more than three and a half million people from Iran went to Iraq, and for nearly a month “all the infrastructure of the western and southern regions of the country” were at the service of the pilgrims.

Festivities for the “Five Percent” Pilgrims

According to Rabiei, a total of approximately 113 million meals and snacks and 150 million bottles of drinking water were distributed among the pilgrims, and to address their health care, more than 1,100 ambulances and 44 equipped ambulance buses were stationed at four border crossings with Iraq.

Masih Mohajeri, the Editor-in-Chief of Jomhouri Eslami newspaper, wrote in the editorial of this newspaper on Sunday, referring to the “highly publicized Arbaeen procession,” “The dramatic increase and leap in focusing on appearances in recent years—has it managed to increase people’s commitment, especially the new generation, to the content of religion and the teachings of the Ahl al-Bayt, particularly the school of Imam Hussein?”

He said that despite extensive propaganda and increased number of Arbaeen ceremony participants, the number of pilgrims is less than five percent of Iran’s total population. Mohajeri added: “Certainly, the actions, behavior, and thoughts of five percent of a society cannot be generalized to the entire society. It is also certain that one cannot place the other 95 percent against these five percent.”

The Editor-in-Chief of Jomhouri Eslami believes that the reality of today’s Iranian society is not reflected in the Arbaeen ceremony participants but rather in “the rate of divorce in our society which is increasing every day, economic corruption which is growing, social abnormalities, addiction, theft, the upward trend of cases entering courts, and the spread of immorality and conflicts.”

The facilities and excessive expenses that have been spent on Arbaeen programs, to which Rabiei alluded, come at a time when not only residents of deprived areas in the west and south, but many Iranian citizens are in dire straits due to sharp price increases, the collapse of the national currency value, economic recession, and unemployment.

U.S. sanctions against the Islamic Republic, which have intensified in recent months, have worsened Iran’s economic situation. The government spokesperson has expressed satisfaction that this year’s Arbaeen ceremony was held with “enthusiasm and vigor” “under unprecedented paralyzing and astonishing sanctions in history.”

Source: DW