Members of Iran’s elite accused of hypocrisy over children’s lives in west | Iran

Members of Iran’s ruling elite have been accused of brazen hypocrisy for allegedly using state wealth to fund the lives of their adult children in the west, while presiding over growing economic misery and oppression at home.

Opposition campaigners have leveled accusations against some of the clerical regime’s most powerful figures as the possibility of a military conflict with the US grows increasingly likely. Donald Trump has deployed a large navy to the Middle East and confirmed he is considering an attack.

Those singled out for criticism include Iran’s top national security adviser, Ali Larijani, who has long been one of the Islamic Republic’s most vocal critics of western values ​​but has a daughter living in the United States and two nephews in Britain and Canada.

Larijani, former parliament speaker and senior Revolutionary Guard member, Played a key role in the deadly crackdown Against the opposition protests that gripped the country in January. Iran’s religious leader Ali Khamenei has reportedly tasked him with coordinating preparations for a possible war with the United States.

Anger too aghzadelerAs the sons of the elite are known, a serious incident occurred after the suppression of the protests resulted in a death toll reported by some sources to be in the tens of thousands.

“People are upset about this aghzadeler “We get dollar scholarships to go west (to the United States, elsewhere in Europe) and study essentially on the state’s dime,” he said. Alex VatankaHe is the Iran program director at the Middle East Institute in Washington.

Washington after protests swore “Revocation of the privilege of Iranian senior officials and their family members to be in the United States,” according to a social media post. However, it is not yet known how these measures will be implemented.

An Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander, who criticized the practice, said it was estimated that 4,000 children and relatives of regime officials would be living in western countries by 2024.

Kambiz GhafouriThe Helsinki-based Iranian writer and human rights activist said: “They turned Iran into hell for Iranian citizens and sent their children west to live happily. If there was a referendum on whether people wanted Iranian officials to send their children back to Iran, I think more than 90 percent would say yes.”

Larijani’s daughter, Fatemeh Ardeshir Laricani, was until last month an assistant professor at Emory University medical school in Atlanta. He said he quit his job after an online petition He called for his deportation..

Larijani’s brother, Mohammed Javad Larijani, who is also an advisor to Khamenei and the former head of the country’s human rights council, has a son named Hadi. Professor at Glasgow Caledonian University’s technology center by in england Regime Exitan opposition site. Hadi’s brother, Sina, is a manager at the Royal Bank of Canada in Vancouver.

Former Iranian president Hassan Rouhani’s niece, Maryam Fereydoun — the daughter of Rouhani’s brother and former deputy Hossein Fereydoun — works for Deutsche Bank in London and “oversees financial flows from the Middle East,” according to Regime Out, which called on the bank to fire her.

Another US-based representative of the regime is Eissa Hashemi, an associate professor at the Chicago School in Los Angeles. He is the son of Masoumeh Ebtekar, a former MP who deserves the nickname. “Mary is screaming” As a spokesman for radical students who held 52 diplomats hostage at the US embassy in Tehran for 444 days at the height of the 1979 revolution.

Habibullah Bitaraf, the former energy minister and another leader of the embassy siege that triggered the rupture between Washington and Tehran, has a daughter who lives in the United States.

Mehdi Zarif’s father, Mohammed Javad Zarif, who also lives in the United States, was Iran’s foreign minister during the negotiations that led to the 2015 nuclear deal, which was later canceled by Trump.

A. petition He accuses Mehdi Zarif of “living a luxurious life in the USA”. “By 2021, he was living in a $16,000,000 house in Manhattan,” he notes.

Ilyas GalibafThe eldest son of Mohammad-Baqer Ghalibaf, a former Revolutionary Guard commander, presidential candidate and onetime mayor of Tehran, lives in Australia and was the target of a similar petition.

Vatanka said the adult children’s western lifestyles are completely at odds with the values ​​their parents preach.

“The essence of the matter is hypocrisy.” he said. “You have an Islamist polity that has been preaching all kinds of behavior for 47 years, and we are seeing one after another of the children or grandchildren of the elite living a very different life from what their politically connected families in Iran preach.”

Vatanka said Western countries may be reluctant to deport the regime’s well-connected sons and daughters who they view as potential intelligence assets.

“There’s always an intelligence value, whether you’re the CIA, MI6 or whoever,” he said. “Some of these connections may bring snippets of information that might be useful. They become messengers.

“There is basically no policy on how to deal with the children of regime elites. The West generally does not want to get involved in collective punishment or punishing someone just because of their origins.”