Who's Who in Ahmadinejad's Cabinet: An Anti-Human Rights Cabinet? (Part I)

Shahram Kholdi, ScanIranic:

After reading the comments of "F14 Pilot" on my previous post about the fact that Ahmadinejad's cabinet is a war cabinet, I decided to conduct further research on the background of many of the nominees. According to my findings, the gate-keeper ministers will have an outer shell made up of ministers with strong Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps background. However, other apparently not politically affiliated nominees appear to have a strong record of being active either with Iran's hardliner Judiciary or the hardliner Guardian Council. The following is my findings according to the information that I have gathered from a host of hardliner websites in Persian. In the first part, I examine how anti-human rights the core of the Cabinet's reputable hardliner nominees are. In the second part, I will examine how they are supported by a militarist outer-shell of ministers, all with revolutionary guards background: READ MORE

The gate-keeper nominees who will constitute the cabinet's hardliner inner shell:

1. Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejehyi (Ministry of Intelligence): Ejehyi has no university background. He is a graduate of Quom Islamic Seminary School. He is by definition a hardliner clergy. He was the direct link between Iran's judiciary and the ministry of intelligence. He has simultaneously held positions in both of the Judiciary and the Intelligence Ministry since 1984. He is certainly the living example to the fact that Iran's Revolutionary Court Judges and Prosecutors are simultaneously high-ranking Intelligence and Security officials (Judge Moghaddas was certainly an example with Islamic Revolutionary Guards background as a plus on his record). His resume also indicates that he was the Judiciary's representative in many counter-intelligence units of the governmental ministries (which are basically branches of the Ministry of Intelligence and act as separate but interrelated organs giving the Islamic Republic of Iran's Intelligence an organic decentralised structure).

Appointment of Ejehyi effectively helps Ahmadinejad to create a police state inside the government, allowing him to go after all the governmental employee who would criticize the government or the regime in its totality.

2. Pourmohammadi (Ministry of Interior): Pourmohammadi has no university background. He is a graduate of Quom Islamic Seminary School. He is by definition a hardliner clergy. In the first decade of the Islamic Republic, he worked as an Islamic Revolutionary Public Prosecutor in the West and Southwestern provinces of the country. In 1988, he was appointed as the head of the Strategic Studies Bureau for National Security. He had already been acting as the Intelligence Ministry's deputy minister from 1985, which continued till 1999. From 1990 to 1999, he was the head of Foreign Intelligence Bureau.

Both Ejehyi and Pourmohammadi are alleged to have played a direct role in the assassination of dissidents outside and inside the country, as well as the mass execution of about two to five thousand political prisoners in the summer of 1988. Ejehyi's record, as the Special Court for the Clergy's Chief Justice, shows that he especially has ensured that dissent amongst the enlightened clergy is suppressed. They are the only clergies who will sit on the cabinet.

3. Jamal Karimi-rad (Ministry of Justice): As a non-clergy Islamic lawyer with LLB and LLM degrees, he is a loyal jurist to the hardliner cause. He has an outstanding record as an Assistant Revolutionary Public Prosecutor in the Province of Kurdistan (ironically enough they have not mentioned when he held this position, but further investigation shows that he held this position in the early years of Revolution when Kurdistan was one of the most tumultuous parts of the country). He has held various prosecutorial and justiceship positions ever since, and has been acting as the Judiciary's spokesperson since 2003.

The above-mentioned three ministers will have certainly an inquisitionist approach to the enforcement of Justice, and will be bent on destroying all the enemies of the Revolution within and without its borders. They will certainly ensure that dissent is controlled and the freedom of speech is guaranteed for those who "appreciate" the blessing the Islamic Republic has been for the Iranian peoples after 2,500 years of imperial oppression.

4. Mohammad Hossein Safar Harandi (Ministry of Islamic Guidance and Culture): He enjoys an outstanding Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps career, as the deputy-commander of the Guards in the South and South East (1979-1983); and head of the Political Bureau of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards (1984-1994). He was the member of the Council for the Determination of the Directives of the Islamic Republic of Iran Press Agency (1993-1997). And finally, he was the editor-in-chief of the hardliner Kayhan newspaper from 1997 till now. He will certainly ensure that newspaper, magazine, and press licenses are not issued to people with equivocal or questionable allegiance to the fundamental principles of the Islamic Republic. He will certainly ensure the regime's propaganda policy is streamlined along the lines that have been set by the Supreme Leader for the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (which is directly accountable to the Supreme Leader).

The Gate-Keepers, as put in such key positions, will form a generally anti-human rights cohort of cabinet ministers and will be bringing intelligence, security-inspired prosecution of dissidents, censorship, and successful propaganda together.

In the next section, I will look at the backgrounds of the other ministers and how the grouping of the ministers of defence, industries, finance and economy will form a militarist outer-shell for the cabinet.

Posted by Shahram Kholdi on August 15, 2005 at 05:30 PM in Human Rights, Iran-US Relations, Iranian Politics, Islam and Democracy, Islamic Republic Politics, Islamic Republic's Nuclear Ambitions

Continue reading the two part series, here.