When the Supreme Leader Speaks, Who Still Listens?

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  By: Struan Stevenson Mojtaba Khamenei inherited the most powerful office in the Islamic Republic. Yet six months into his tenure, a question once considered unthinkable is surfacing in Tehran. When the Supreme Leader speaks, who still listens? For almost five decades, the answer was obvious. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini created a system in which factional warfare could rage beneath the surface, provided everyone ultimately bowed to the Supreme Leader. Ali Khamenei preserved that arrangement for more than three decades. Presidents came and went. Clerics competed. The Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) accumulated power. Yet one principle remained sacrosanct. The Supreme Leader had the final word. Today that principle is under strain. On August 28, Mojtaba Khamenei warned officials against creating false choices between war and negotiation, compromise and confrontation. He urged them to avoid publicizing weaknesses and declared that anything damaging social cohesion was forbidden. The mess...
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Iran Drug Mafia: 80 Percent of Drugs Are Not Observable

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 By HOSHANG AMIRI

As the spokesperson for Iran’s Anti-Trafficking Headquarters has recently said, out of the 34 trillion tomans of the annual turnover of the drug in the country, about 25 trillion tomans, which is equivalent to 80 percent, is not observable and there is no control over its distribution, and this is creating extreme losses for the country’s economy.

The main holes of this leak are the drugstores, the hospitals, and the supply, distribution, and consumption network.

However, as the healthcare officials said if the information about the drugs were recorded in the Titak system, the withdrawal of the drugs from the network does not happen that easily.



But it seems that the deputy of health has no interest in cooperating to record the distribution of the drugs in the Titak system which is raising the skepticism that the health ministry is easing the way of drug smuggling. This skepticism is affirmed because the health deputy is showing no interest to join the meetings to investigate the drug leakage.

The drug mafia and the golden signs are an old story in Iran and looking to the past its trace is visible. For a long time, ago Nasser Khosrow Street is the black market for smuggled and fake drugs which has become the last hope for patients who cannot find their drug in any drugstore.

And none of the officials are denying this event while most of these are fake and endangers the people’s lives. As Saeed Namaki, former minister of health emphasized and unveiled the corruption in the Food and Drug Administration and the existence of drug mafia and golden signatures, widespread violations in the support system of the Food and Drug Administration (Titak). A system that Namaki later claimed that they must make reforms in it, but this did not happen.

Now Mohammad Reza Dehghaninia confessed about the drug mafia and corruption and said: “Currently, only about 6.5 trillion tomans of medicine are monitored due to registration in the Titak system, but about 25 trillion tomans are not observed and it is possible to get these items out of the chain.”

The roots of this widespread corruption can be found in the Food and Drug Administration (Titak) support system, which, according to Mohsen Jalavati, deputy managing director of the NGO Transparency Watch, is possible to manipulate and import the desired information to it, so that even those who do not receive the 4200 tomans import currency has been able to get the currency by importing banned drugs.

The surprise is that this system is in the hands of the so-called private mainly controlled by the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), and the regime’s health officials have no control over it.

Another system that is helping the smugglers and this corrupt drug chain is the country’s custom controlled by the IRGC. Seyed Heidar Mohammadi, Director General of Drug Affairs under the control of the Food and Drug Administration said that the custom never accepted to give the inventory information of the goods which are stored in the public depots to the specialized institutions such as the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Agriculture Jihad, Ministry of Communications and Ministry of Industries and Business.

This article was first published by iranfocus

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