Mr. Hashemi’s Family
Hashemi’s Children and Politics
According to Iran Gate Bitardid, Mr. Hashemi’s family plays an important role in his political life. Many of the criticisms and attacks directed at Hashemi have been aimed at his children.
Faezeh Hashemi
Faezeh, a sixty-year-old, was a representative of Tehran in the fifth term of the Islamic Consultative Assembly. She is the second daughter of Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. Politically, Hashemi leans towards reformism and is considered one of the founding members of the Builders of Islamic Iran Party. She is also a member of the board of directors of the Office for the Publication of Revolutionary Teachings, which publishes the works and memoirs of Hashemi Rafsanjani.
He holds a PhD in Human Rights Law from Azad University, as well as two Bachelor’s degrees in Management from Alzahra University and Political Science from Islamic Azad University, Tehran Central Branch. After being unsuccessful in the sixth parliamentary elections, he went to England to continue his studies and obtained a Master’s degree in Human Rights Law from the University of Birmingham. However, after two years of studying at the doctoral level in this university, he transferred his studies to Iran. Until 2018, he was teaching law at Azad University, Pardis Campus, but due to misconduct in his recruitment at this university, he was expelled. According to his own statement, he is currently working as a guard in Rafsanjan.
Faezeh Hashemi talks about her activities in the fifth parliament. She says, “My activities in the parliament had three dimensions: addressing societal issues, especially political issues, women’s issues, and sports-related issues.”
Media activity
In 1998, she published the first women’s newspaper in the Islamic Republic, called “Zan” (Woman), and was its editor-in-chief. The newspaper was shut down twice, first in February 1999 for two weeks, and then permanently on April 6, 1999, due to publishing political news, criticizing Islamic hijab, supporting feminism, publishing a caricature of Arvin, and publishing news about Farah Pahlavi.
In an interview with Ensaf News on January 8, 2021, Faezeh Hashemi faced numerous reactions on the occasion of the fourth anniversary of her father’s death. In a part of that conversation, she stated that she preferred Trump for Iran because there are more dangerous parts and individuals than Trump who have pushed the country towards ineffective mismanagement, incompetence, corruption, and sometimes even to the point of violating public demands. They not only ignore these demands but also try to silence them.
A political prisoner like her father
However, the controversies surrounding Faezeh Hashemi are not limited to the arrest of newspapers and media outlets or the ban on her academic activities. Finally, Faezeh’s sharp and critical statements and interviews led her to be sentenced by Branch 15 of the court, under the presidency of Judge Salavati, on January 3, 2012, to six months of imprisonment and five years of deprivation from political, cultural, and media activities on charges of anti-system propaganda.
Hashemi was arrested on 27 September 2022 during the protest movement by a security institution. Prior to the protests, he had stated that the government refers to it as ‘rioting’ in order to suppress the protests, and described the content of the Islamic Republic as something I detest and a dictatorship to preserve its survival.
Tasnim News Agency, affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, announced that the reason for his arrest was inciting street protests in the eastern Tehran region. His mother, Afat Moraeshi, sent letters to Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, asking for an end to mistreatment of prisoners. After a month, his family was able to meet with him in Evin.
In the first court session on 30 November, Hashemi was charged with assembly and conspiracy against national security, anti-government propaganda, and disrupting public order and tranquility through participation in illegal gatherings. According to his lawyer, Hashemi was sentenced to six months of imprisonment and as an additional punishment, five years of deprivation from membership and activities in parties, groups, associations, virtual spaces, and media outlets. He was sentenced to five years in prison by Judge Salavati in the court, which was later confirmed by his lawyer.
Among the children of Ayatollah Hashemi, Faezeh can be considered the most different, as she has always been in the headlines with her sharp and controversial criticisms, both during her father’s lifetime and afterwards. Her father, who was one of the founders and most influential figures in the 1979 revolution, had been imprisoned multiple times by the Pahlavi government for his revolutionary activities, and coincidentally, he was the last prisoner in which Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was imprisoned.
Today, his daughter is imprisoned in the same prison, but under the supervision and enforcement of the government’s orders, of which her father is one of the founders. It seems that the only thing that changes in our country’s prisons is the prison guard, otherwise, imprisonment, pressure, and intimidation for dissidents and critics still remain.
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