IRAN: Notoriety under Sharia Garb

In the first part of my research-based article on titled 'Iran: Clerics or pimps', readers must have already learnt about the latest status of women in that country, which is under the totalitarian role of Muslim fanatics, who virtually are turning the country into a hell.

Rights of women are regularly denied in Iran. Mullahs are acting like a pimp and selling Iranian women to tourists as well to foreign nations. In some cases, women injected with HIV virus are sent to foreign destinations, especially Western countries to 'destroy' those societies, which Mullahs term as 'holy Jihad'. Some of the females are recruited with handsome cash incentives as suicide bombers.

Now here is the second part of the article, where I have tried to give facts on on-growing trend of corruption within administration and various sectors in Iran. In this part of the article, I also have mentioned about the notoriety of Iran's Revolutionary Guard as well how the rotten Mullahs in Iran are using their women for mere entertainment. As promised, I shall continue to write on other issues related to Iran in coming days.

Since over-throwing the elected government by Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979 under the banner of so-called Islamic Revolution, Iran is consistently patronizing terror in various parts of the world. Millions of dollar continued to spend in instigating militant Islam. It is even evidently proved that, Iranian ministers are directly involved in smuggling cash to various militant groups and fanatic Muslim political fronts in the world to support up rise of radical Islam.

During my investigation into Iran affairs, I interviewed a radical Muslim leader, who once is closely associated with Iranian rulers. He told me that, Iranian Mullahs not only provide huge amount of cash incentives to various fanatic Muslim leaders and kingpins of militancy, but, those people are regularly invited by Tehran with the excuse of participating in various seminars, symposiums etc. As 'gesture of gratitude', Iranian Mullahs supply beautiful Iranian girls to these people each night with a temporary marriage certificate. Many of those people, though belong to Sunni sect of Muslims, they never hesitate in accepting such 'gesture' of the Iranian 'Islamic leaders', as it gives them the excellent opportunity of meaning their lust for astonishingly pretty Iranian females. In most cases, such sexual acts of fanatic Muslim leaders of kingpins of militancy with Iranian females, supplied under the cover of temporary marriage are video graphed by the Iran's rough administration. Later such materials are used to continuously blackmail them in order to ensure their life-long loyalty towards Mullahs of Iran.

Iran spends millions of dollars through its 'Cultural Sections' in various nations, especially those Muslim countries. In Bangladesh alone, the cultural section of Iran spends US$ 10-15 million a year in continuing its activities in giving provocation towards Jihad and establishment of Sharia rule as well in spreading anti-West and anti-Israel notions. Iranian Cultural Center in Bangladesh publishes a vernacular newsmagazine every month with another publication for the children. According to information, more than 50,000 copies of each of such publications are mostly circulated amongst Bangladeshis on complimentary basis. Moreover, writers and translators for these publications are accorded financial support in the name of payment for their services.

Major segment of these publications are propaganda materials in favour of Khomeini's Islamic Revolution as well extreme provocative articles against United States, Israel, Christians and Jewish people in the world.

Iranian Cultural Center also gives regular financial support to 'Al Qud's Society' in Muslim nations, which is actually a jihadist recruitment front-wing for sending Muslim Jihadists to fight against Israel as well sending Jihadists under-cover to Western nations with subversive agendas.

The Cultural Section of Iran in Muslim nations also patronizes local wings of Hizbullah as well as 'Revolutionary Guard'. Main task of Hizbullah, funded by Iran is to hook-up links between Iranian administration and local Islamist political fronts, while task of 'Revolutionary Guard' is to give instigations to local in becoming a Jihadist.

Giving description of 'Iranian hospitality', a local Bangladesh Islamist leader with heavy affiliation with Iran said, "I was invited by the Iranian government to visit that country in 2009 along with a five-member delegation of Muslim clerics. When we arrived at Tehran airport, we saw, luxurious cars were waiting to receive us. We were then headed to State Guest House. It was already in our itinerary to meet Iranian president Ahmadenijad during this trip.

"Within few hours of our arrival at the guest house, two senior officials of the Iranian government came to meet us and provided Iranian Tomans equivalent to US$ 1,000 to each of the members of the delegations as 'pocket money'. We were also briefed about the progresses and prosperities Iranian government has attained since the Islamic revolution of 1979.

"When the officials left, it was already time for dinner. We headed to the dinning hall and saw a few clerics were waiting to join us in the dinner. Food was excellent and of wide range of menus. When our dinner was almost finished, a team of 10-12 females in veils entered the hall and sat at a nearby table. They removed a part of their veil which enabled us to see, all of them were young beautiful Iranian girls. The clerics smiled and asked, if any of us were willing to take them on temporary marriage for the night.

"We all were aware of Mut'ah [temporary] marriage in Iran, which is allowed for Shiite sect of Muslims. A member of our delegation even said, such temporary marriage was not a sin for a Sunni.

"We decided to accept the offer of the clerics and nodded to them. They glared at those girls and all came at our table, circled us, enabling us to choose our wife for the night under temporary marriage agreement. When selection was finished, remaining girls put on their veils and left the hall.

"The girl who came to my room as my wife under temporary marriage said, she and her colleagues are not regular hookers. They work for only state-level guests and are paid monthly salary by the Iranian government.

"She said they also regularly serve the Iranian clerics and supreme leaders as wives under temporary marriage law. When any of them get pregnant due to such physical relations, the state would take necessary measures in taking them to any state-owned hospital for abortion.

"We are not allowed to get pregnant or become a mother, she said.

"According to her estimation, a few hundred females are employed by the Islamic republic to serve state-level guests, members of armed forces, leaders and clerics in Iran.

"We stayed in Iran for 12 nights and were provided wife for each of the nights under temporary marriage law.

"On our return, an Iranian diplomat in Dhaka told us in a casual meeting that most of the nights were video graphed by the Iranian intelligence agency. We knew it was a kind of mild threat to all of us to remind the consequence if we ever abandoned our pro-Iran stand."

The information revealed by the local Islamist leader was a stunning piece of scoop for me. I was surprised to know that any government can run such prostitution ring to meet their own lustre and political agenda. This single piece of information was enough for me to ascertain the rotten minds of the clerics in Iran, who are continuing various forms of repressive actions in that country under the garb of Islam.

Inside Iran, corruption is spreading like bonfire in various sections of the administration, clerical system and even army. Many Iranians believe the country's miserable economic situation is a by-product of mismanagement and widespread corruption at the top. Iran, being world's third-largest oil exporter, sells its crude worth billions of dollars every year. So the question on the lips of people in the streets is: Where's all this money going?

Though Iranians are traditionally suspicious of their government and believe corruption is always in fashion among the ruling class, it was a little-known government functionary who kindled the fire of the public's latest obsession with suspected high-level corruption. Abbas Palizdar claimed to be a member of the body commissioned by parliament to probe the judiciary. In late May 2008, in a speech and interviews, he accused senior religious leaders and politicians, including former President Ali Abkhar Hashemi-Rafsanjani, of deep involvement in corruption. Palizdar's remarks not only landed him in jail, the Iranian regime sparked a storm of controversy against him. Later he reiterated his charges on June 9, 2008 in an interview with Radio Farda.

"Yes, I spoke based on documents and evidence [that I have]," he said. "There are many more cases that I will reveal in the future. Everything that I said - if [the government] didn't add anything to it - is based on proof and documents."

Palizdar's accusations took many people by surprise.

At first, no one even acknowledged knowing him. Officials then called him an imposter, claiming no one had been assigned to probe the judiciary. A few days later, after he reiterated his accusations to the media, Palizdar was arrested and charged with spreading lies and slander.

At the same time, the Inspector-General's Office acknowledged that members of the Majlis, or parliament, had in fact presented Palizdar to the judiciary for the purpose of having him inspect and probe their legal records.

The incident became the talk of the country. In Tehran, some 200 protesters gathered in support of Palizdar, many of them briefly detained after clashing with police. Meanwhile, judiciary officials announced that 11 people, most of them government employees, had been indicted, and some arrested, in connection with Palizdar's comments.

It all provided grist to the mill for those who are convinced that the ruling class in Iran - in any guise and garb - is corrupt. They said Palizdar's comments revealed nothing new.

Nehmat Ahmadi, a well-known lawyer in Tehran, told Radio Farda that Palizdar either had powerful backing in the government or a very strong death wish.

"What he says is a kind of suicide," Ahmadi said. "If he wants to kill himself, that's natural. He knows that they will take him and put him in jail - and that if they don't kill him, he will face a very harsh punishment."

True or false, conspiracy or not, the accusations made by Palizdar seemed to gain a life of their own, became a red-hot subject of attack and counterattack for all political factions against each other. Some analysts said this incident brought to the surface the most important political issue in Iran: that is, the bitter power struggle between "old" and "new" revolutionary conservatives.

Palizdar's corruption allegations singled out some of Iran's most influential religious figures. Professor Fereidoon Khavand, who teaches economics in Paris, says such talk is making Iran's economic situation worse because it weakens the confidence of merchants and local investors. In his opinion, the controversy is a key example of why religious leaders should stay out of the political fray.

"Shi'ism is a part of Iranian identity, whether we like it or not," Khavand says. "I was deeply sorry when I saw that the names of the most important religious leaders are mentioned as allegedly taking part in activities such as possession of mines and cars, favoritism, bribery, and so on. All this confirms that giving religion a role in political affairs is a bad idea."

But Nehmat Ahmadi, the lawyer, saw positives in the affair. He said, regardless of whether the accusations were politically motivated, they have shone a light on an unseemly side of Iran's political and economic system.

"We could find [the roots] of corruption in the ownership system of Iran," he says. "The government owns everything: water, power, land, and sea. Everything you can imagine. In a system of ownership like that, corruption comes naturally."

In 2009, Transparency International [TI] ranked Iran a miserable ninth from the bottom in its annual Corruption Perceptions Index. What's particularly damning about this ranking is that corruption has nearly doubled under Ahmadinejad's watch: Iran had a score of 2.9 out of 10 in 2005, the first year of his presidency, and now sits uncomfortably at 1.8, a 38 percent drop. Ahmadinejad, a Holocaust denier, illegitimate president, crook and patron of terror is using Shariah Law and his almost singular power as the head of the country administrated by fanatics and extremists, is continuing to screw up Iran's most prospective economy, thus causing thousands of unemployment every month. It is evidently proved that, Ahmadinejad's one and only agenda is to make most of the so-called revolutionary bodies financially stronger. A shady deal was singled out by the Iranian regime in 2009, the sale of the Telecommunication Company of Iran, a whopping $7.8 billion share purchase - the biggest in the history of the Iranian stock exchange - to a company run by the Revolutionary Guards. The commission concluded that the consortium contesting the bid was a "fake rival" and the telecom company was essentially handed over to the Guards. This sale is only one sign of the creeping influence of the Guards into the Iranian economy. A report published by the RAND Corporation in 2009 noted, "From laser eye surgery and construction to automobile manufacturing and real estate, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard has extended its influence into virtually every sector of the Iranian market." More problematic, the RAND report notes are the allegations that the Guards control much of the country's black-market trade.

The Islamic Revolution Guard [IRG] is a combined arms force with its own ground forces, navy, air force, intelligence, and special-forces. It also controls the Basij militia, which has a potential strength of eleven million. The Basij is a volunteer-based force, with 90,000 regular soldiers and 300,000 reservists. The IRG is officially recognized as a component of the Iranian military under Article 150 of the Iranian Constitution. It is separate from, and parallel to, the other arm of the Iran's military, which is called Artesh [another Persian word for army].

IRG controls the borders of Iran. This is a source for much of the widespread corruption commonly known throughout the IRG.

The IISS Military Balance 2007 says the IRGC has 125,000+ personnel and controls the Basij on mobilizations. It estimates the IRG Ground and Air Forces are 100,000 strong and is 'very lightly manned' in peacetime. It estimates there are up to 20 infantry divisions, some independent brigades, and one airborne brigade.

The IISS estimates the IRG Naval Forces are 20,000 strong including 5,000 Marines in one brigade of three or four Marine Battalions., and are equipped with some coastal defense weapons [some HY-2/CSS-C-3 Seersucker SSM batteries and some artillery batteries] and 50 patrol boats [including 10 Chinese Houdang fast attack craft]. The IRG air arm, says the IISS, controls Iran's strategic missile force and has an estimated one brigade of Shahab-1/2 with 12-18 launchers, and a Shahab-3 unit. The IISS says of the Shahab-3 unit 'estimated 1 battalion with estimated 6 single launchers each with estimated 4 Shahab-3 strategic IRBM.'

The elite Quds Force, sometimes described as the successor to the Shah's Imperial Guards, is estimated to be 2,000-5,000 in number. It is a special operations unit, handling activities abroad. The United States describes it as a terrorist organization that backs militants in Iraq, Lebanon and Afghanistan.

Corruption "is very widespread, and everyone is in on the action, everyone at the top," said Gary Sick, an Iran expert at Columbia University who served on the National Security Council under three presidents. "It's a very, very ugly situation."

"You have to bribe the postman to get your mail delivered," said Abbas Milani, director of the Iranian studies program at Stanford University. "It's pandemic, and, now, normalized."

Petty exactions at the mailbox and city offices lead inexorably toward multimillion-dollar bribes to government officials from companies that want to start businesses. It's normalized, as Milani said. The businessmen have the direct-wire addresses to move the money into the officials' offshore accounts. Given the wealth that washes through the economy from the oil business - Iran is the world's fourth largest oil producing nation - the amount of money passed in some bribes is larger than the annual budgets of mid-size Iranian cities.

As so often happens in corrupt societies, Iran's leaders profess to be clean and distressed about the graft. Don't believe it. As Milani puts it: "You can't rule a bureaucracy where everyone who works for you is corrupt! And you are clean!"

Reporting from Iran shows that the children of both Ahmadinejad and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, are set up with positions that tie them directly into the money flow so that they are quite wealthy. Are their fathers going to watch their children get rich while they live a pious life on a government salary? Unlikely!

It is reported in the international media and several pro-democracy blogs in Iran that, most of the top figures in Iranian regime are maintaining off-shore bank account with exorbitant amount of money. Ahmadinejad and family members of such leaders live the life like prince and princess of oil-rich Arab nations. Though normal Iranians are obstructed from watching Western television channels, these privileged children use their own receivers and dish antennas to catch all such 'forbidden' channels for their amusement. Domestic helps are even engaged at the mere palaces of Iranian rulers, where young and beautiful Iranian girls are regularly violated by the 'kids' of these most powerful people in the 'Islamic Republic'.

Even the members of Iran's Revolutionary Guard are reportedly running mini-casinos inside its 'Recreation Center' in Tehran. Millionaire and corrupt members of the Revolutionary Guard spend millions of Tomans [Iranian currency] in gambling while beautiful girls are regularly supplied for their 'amusement' from various prisons in Iran. Deflowering a virgin female prisoner is one of the most prominent 'games' of the members of this notorious organization.

Even wives of imprisoned Iranians are forced to offer sex to the leaders of Revolutionary Guard to get their husbands released. Such tactics of virtually forcing the wives into physical relations is in practice in the Iranian society since the so-called Islamic Revolution of 1979. And of course, most of such notoriety is taking place under the garb of Temporary Marriage, which is legal in Iran, giving opportunity to men to have sex with any female even for once. There is cleric stationed at the 'Recreation Center' of the Revolutionary Guard to perform 'rituals' required for the segheh or temporary marriage.

In Iran, according to Shiite Islamic law, uttering any word against the rulers is considered as uttering work against Allah. Punishment for such 'crime' is extremely brutal. It ranges between several years in prison to death penalty. Iranian secret police regular intercept internet users, especially the bloggers and various chat sites as well community sites to locate anyone saying anything negative about the administration or the growing trend of corruption. Once identified, these people will be picked up by the secret police and in case the arrestee is a female, she will be taken into the 'Recreation Center' of the Revolutionary Guard for 'amusement' of the members, before she is pushed inside prison for imprisonment or death sentence.

Many Iranians by now know that Ayatollah Khomeini used series of lies to annoy the nation against Iran and provoke them towards 'holy war' in establishing 'rule of Allah'. Khomeini attained impeccable support of the masses against his movement to drive out Iran's decade-old Shah Dynasty. Khomeini was taken to Paris by his civilian students. There he had access to free media and through the Iranian mosques engineered the Iranian revolution. He told series of lies that every body believed considering 'people of Allah' wont lie. Khomeini promised that, after the fall of Shah Dynasty, the new Iranian government would be democratic and that the role of clergy would be only supervisory.

Upon arrival in Tehran Ayatollah Khomeini promised that according to Iranian constitution he would have a free election so people could elect the "the assembly of the founders" to change the constitution and set up the "free Iran". However in a few months the elected "assembly of the founders" was changed to the appointed "assembly of experts" a rag tag of clergymen who set up the only Theocracy on the planet. There was a resistance by different political groups and Khomeini handily took care of it with the "hostage crisis". While the entire world was obsessed with freeing hostages, he put all of his laws through, killed all of the 'militant enemies' and set up the "Islamic republic of Iran". By the time the dust settled he was the new king with a turban on his head and 150,000 well paid religious zealots who turned the country to a religious dictatorship, as bad those in the middle ages.

Today the question is that if the people of Iran do not like their government, why they vote by the millions? Khomeini had an answer for everything: Iranian birth certificates look like an American passport, so when there is an election they stamp your birth certificate. If anyone does not participate they easily know and the non-participating citizen would be deprived of government jobs, government subsidies and their kids will not be accepted to any of the universities. Sometimes international community watch anti-West demonstrations by the millions of Iranian. This would possibly generate question, as to why these oppressed people are chanting anti-West slogan instead of protesting the evil administration of the Mullahs. Well if anyone does not participate in such anti-West and anti-Israel demonstrations, the snitches who know people through the local mosques will report to the ministry of information who is located in the same building which was the "SAVAC" headquarters [Shah's notorious secret police]. So, such anti-West or anti-Israel 'demonstration' in Iran are not voluntarily participated by the people of Iran. Rather they are forced into participation, which possibly many in the world are yet to know.

On the other hand if anyone is caught participating in any real uprising against the rotten Mullah's regime, he or she will be sent to Tehran's worst barbaric Evin Prison.

Widespread corruption by the clerics in Iran is no more any secret. The clerics, controlling almost all the revenue-generating projects in the country are engaged in virtual looting of national wealth. Charitable organizations are not even spared by these elements. Among the main bastions of clerical control are the Bonyad, immense foundations built up after 1979 from wealth confiscated from Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, Iran's last shah. Ostensibly "charitable" organizations, they frequently use their wealth - up to 35 percent of the economy, according to analysts - for questionable purposes. Today, due to rogue administration of Mullahs, economic prospects in Iran are very poor - and people recognize that their religious leaders are largely to blame for this. Drastic democratic reforms certainly wouldn't change anything quickly, but combined with drastic economic reforms Iran does have a chance at developing a very strong economy and society during the coming decades. First, though, they have to toss out the bums that have been ruining everything for them.