Iranian President Hassan Rohani has referred to the concentration of power as a cause of corruption and he criticized the combination of arms, money, power and the media controlled by one institution.
At a gathering aimed at fighting corruption, with the heads of government branches in attendance, Rohani said: “When information, arms, money, newspapers, news agencies and other trappings of power are concentrated in one institution, even saints would be corrupted.”
It appears that President Rohani is referring to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), which in addition to extensive military power is also widely active in economic projects and the media.
He said iranians have two views of corruption: “either that officials know about it and say nothing; or that they do not have the power to fight corruption.”
He added that both views bring the Islamic Republic under question because uprooting corruption was one of the promises of the 1979 Revolution and it has not been realized.
He emphasized the need to monitor the fight against corruption, adding that the role of the Assembly of Experts as a body that monitors the Supreme Leader emphasizes the fact that “even the highest office in our country is dedicated to the constitution.”
While vice president Eshagh Jahangiri read a letter from Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran’s Supreme Leader, urging immediate action against corruption, Ayatollah Sadegh Larijani, the head of the Iranian Judiciary, said in his speech that “sensationalizing the fight against corruption in the media could have detrimental effects.”
Conservative factions of the Islamic Republic have been concerned that news coverage of corruption is a way of discrediting the regime.
