From the beggars of the nobles in the west to the rebellion of the fathers in the west.
The controversy surrounding Eshagh Ghalibaf started when a picture of a federal court ruling in Canada was published on social media, showing that he had resorted to the judicial system of that country to obtain Canadian residency. Eshagh Ghalibaf is one of the sons of Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, a commander in the Revolutionary Guards who once commanded the police force for a long time, served as the mayor of Tehran for a long time, and now holds the presidency of the Islamic Consultative Assembly.
According to the published document, the son of Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf filed a complaint with the Canadian Immigration Office due to the prolonged process of reviewing his residency application, requesting the Federal Court to intervene in his case. The Federal Court of Canada also requested the organization responsible for immigrant affairs in the country to promptly respond to Eshagh Ghalibaf’s residency request.
According to a Federal Court of Canada ruling in 2019, Eshaq Ghalibaf submitted this request and currently his case is awaiting a security background check report. The outcome of such a report is crucial for a Canadian immigration officer to decide whether to grant residency in Canada to Eshaq Ghalibaf or not.
According to Ardeshir Zarezadeh, an Iranian lawyer in Canada, the content of the Federal Court of Canada ruling has no relation to the case file or its outcome. The court only commented on the duration of the proceedings. He emphasized on social media and in an interview with Radio Farda that the likelihood of Eshaq Ghalibaf’s immigration case being accepted is almost zero.
Who is Eshaq Ghalibaf?
There are not many details available about Eshaq Ghalibaf’s life. In 1397, the Telegram channel Amednews, managed by Rouhollah Zam, a journalist who was executed, claimed that Eshaq Ghalibaf had gone to Melbourne, Australia with a large sum of money. This is despite Mohammad Baqer Ghalibaf announcing a year earlier during the presidential election campaign that his son Eshaq’s total assets were a Nissan car, a motorcycle, and one million Tomans.
According to reports, Eshaq Ghalibaf went to Australia to study for a master’s degree in civil engineering at the University of Melbourne and then immigrated to Canada. However, his departure from Iran did not stop reports about his economic activities in Iran. In 2020, Ali Ghaffarian, a conservative media activist, claimed that the monopoly of meat sales in Iran is in the hands of Eshaq Ghalibaf.
He wrote, ‘What do you think about Eshaq Ghalibaf, the young son of the Speaker of Parliament who studied in Australia, gaining the monopoly of meat sales during his father’s tenure as mayor? Mr. Ghalibaf, who has never explained about his family’s businesses, should this time provide transparency about the monopoly.’ Ghalibaf has not spoken much about his children during this time, but recently, during a government rally on February 11th, when someone asked him about his family’s trips abroad, he responded, ‘Is it a sin for a family to travel?’
The story of Eshaq’s controversial request became a scandal.
The emigration of the children of former and current senior officials of the Islamic Republic to Western countries, especially in the unfavorable economic conditions in Iran where people face many difficulties in buying essential goods, becomes controversial. Critics of the Islamic Republic say that the authorities of the Iranian government have put the country in a situation that is not even livable for their own children due to their inefficiency and wrong policies.
Other critics also point to the corruption within the ruling system and the families of officials, interpreting the presence of the children of Islamic Republic officials abroad within the framework of prevailing corruption. The son of Qalibaf, whose father held key positions in the Islamic Republic for decades, is not an exception to this rule. Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, who immediately joined the Basij and then the Revolutionary Guards right after the 1979 Revolution, quickly rose in this military and ideological institution of the Islamic Republic.
In the 1970s, he was appointed as the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Air Force by the decree of Ali Khamenei, then later as the commander of the police force. However, his ambitions did not end there, and he always strived to become the president. He ran for the presidential elections several times but was unsuccessful each time. In the 1980s, he became the mayor of Tehran and remained in that position for 12 years until he reached the position of the Speaker of the Iranian Parliament. Throughout all these years, various reports and documents have been published regarding the economic corruption of Qalibaf and also reports of economic corruption involving his family members.
Qalibaf has two sons named Ishaq and Elias, with Elias reportedly being a teacher. He also has a daughter who is married. During the presidential election debates in 2017 when Qalibaf, the then-mayor of Tehran, was once again running for president, Mohammad Ali Vakili, the spokesperson of Hassan Rouhani’s election headquarters, accused one of Qalibaf’s sons of economic corruption. Vakili stated that Elias Qalibaf’s business activities both inside and outside the country are questionable.
At that time, Ensafnews wrote that Elyas Ghalibaf is the CEO of Shamsalshams Institute, which owns a central office, a primary school, and a preschool in a relatively large area in Saadat Abad district.
Additionally, in 1394, reports about Elyas Ghalibaf’s involvement in the corruption case of the Law Enforcement Forces Foundation were published. In this regard, Kalameh website on 29 Ordibehesht 94, in a report referring to the former commander of the Law Enforcement Forces’ connection to the discovery of a financial corruption of 1200 billion Tomans in the Law Enforcement Forces Foundation, also mentioned rumors about the connection of Mohammad Baqer Ghalibaf and some IRGC commanders who had joined the Law Enforcement Forces with this case.
At that time, there were also reports about the detention of the son of Tehran’s mayor in this regard and his escape to the United Arab Emirates after being released on bail, but these reports were denied by Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, the spokesperson of the judiciary at the time. The issue of astronomical properties of Yas Holding, Zahra Meshir’s charity, the wife of Ghalibaf, as well as the Ghalibaf family’s trip to Turkey, which became famous as the ‘Gate Shopping,’ are among other matters in reports related to the corruption of the Ghalibaf family.