June 17, 2022
A building under construction in Abadan pancaked May 23, killing at least 41 people and prompting anti-regime protests as it emerged that construction rules had been ignored.
Immediately after the protests erupted, the government announced that it had arrested 14 people, including the man who owned the building, Hossain Abdol-Baghi, 40, and who had been allowed to violate the building code.
But the next day, it was announced that Abdol-Baghi had been killed in the collapse. That prompted swift speculation that the man had actually fled the country and that the announcement of his death was nothing but an official coverup. The government subsequently said a DNA test on one of the bodies proved it to be Abdol-Baghi.
The regime often makes false announcements of arrests after a disastrous event to make it appear it is doing something. This is nothing unique to the Islamic Republic. It is part and parcel of the approach immortalized in the Claude Rains’ portrayal of a Vichy police commandant in the film “Casablanca” who says after every untoward event, “Round up the usual suspects.”
News reports that the government did not deny said the building license originally called for a six-story structure but that later another five stories were added.
The Iranian public immediately assumed that the collapse was the result of the owner bribing public officials to be allowed to build a substandard structure. However, buildings do collapse because of contractor errors, but that possibility was ignored.
The police began with an assumption of corruption, announcing the day after the collapse that they had arrested the mayor of Abadan, three predecessors and other city employees along with the building’s owner. Two weeks later, officials said a total of 14 suspects had been detained.
The anti-regime demonstrations that followed the collapse were concentrated in Khuzestan province, which has seen many protests in recent months, including over water shortages and surging food prices. But protests were also reported in scattered other cities around the country, including Rey, just south of Tehran.
Video posted online showed police in Abadan firing tear gas at protesters at the site of the collapse. Video also showed only two pieces of equipment at the site.
The protests were not just resulting from the allegations of corruption, but also from news coverage that seemed to minimize the scale and seriousness of the disaster. Some reporters told friends they had been ordered to play down the death toll and instead emphasize the rescues. But state broadcasting coverage was also interrupted by protesters. Both the daily Hamshahri and the Fars news agency reported that protesters at the site had attacked a platform set up by state broadcasting and forced cameramen to flee.
Politics was also seen in the aftermath. Sadeq Khalilian, the governor general of Khuzestan province appointed by President Raisi, blamed the collapse on the Rohani Administration, saying the structure was largely built under his presidency.
He said the building’s instability was known to officials of the previous administration because reports filed in 2017 and 2019 warned of danger but were ignored because of “unhealthy relations,” a term for bribery. He did not address the fact that they had also been ignored during the 10 months he has been in office.
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenehi spoke out on the scandal, but not to deal with the allegations of corruption. Rather, he addressed the protests after the building collapse and blamed them on foreigners. “Today, our enemies’ key hope for striking a blow against the country is based on popular protests.”
Khamenehi himself came under attack for ignoring the disaster in a speech he made three days after the collapse. After the uproar over his silence, he issued a statement calling for the rescue effort to be accelerated and for “exemplary punishment” to be meted out to the guilty—again assuming that corruption was behind the collapse.
The protests have not just complained of bribery allowing the Metropol Towers to be built to less than accepted standards, but also to inadequate rescue efforts. Local residents were seen clawing away at the rubble with their bare hands because there were few trained rescue workers and little in the way of equipment to lift the heavy parts of the rubble.
The building was still under construction when it collapsed without warning, but the ground floor had opened with a restaurant and some shops. The government has said 39 people were pulled alive from the wreckage.
Saeed Hafezi, a journalist in Abadan who lives in exile, posted a video he had aired last yar in which he cited a civil engineering report about serious construction flaws, including curving floors and liquefaction.
Officials said that when the rescue effort is completed, they will tear down the uncollapsed portions of building.
First Vice President Mohammad Mokhber said Abdol-Baghi had previously built several other buildings in Abadan and Khorramshahr and called for them to be checked by engineers. Nothing more has been heard about that.
The site of the Metropol Towers is only blocks from the site of the Cinema Rex, which was burned down during the revolution in 1978, incinerating hundreds because the doors were locked. The fire has been blamed over the years on both monarchists and revolutionaries. NN
Iranian actress Zahra Amir-Ebrahimi won the Best Actress Award at the 75th Cannes Film Festival for her performance as a journalist in the movie “Holy Spider” directed by Danish-Iranian Ali Abbasi. It is a thriller about the crime of a real killer targeting prostitutes in Mashhad.
The film was denied a license to be filmed in Iran, and was shot instead in Jordan.
Ebrahimi said upon receiving the award that the film depicted “everything that is impossible to show in Iran.”
Ebrahimi, 41, is an assistant director and photographer as well as an actress and is now living in France after fleeing scandal in Iran.
“I have come a long way to be on this stage tonight,” she told the audience at the final award ceremonies in Cannes.
“It was not an easy story. It was humiliation, it was solitude, but there was cinema. It was darkness, but there was cinema. Now, I’m standing in front of you on a night of joy,” Ebrahimi said.
She was previously best known for her role in one of Iranian TV’s longest-running drama series, “Nargess.”
But her life and career fell apart shortly after the show ended, when a sex tape was leaked online in 2006, which, it was claimed, featured her.
After the Cannes Festival concluded, Iran’s Culture Ministry said “Holy Spider” was an insult to the religious beliefs of Iranians. The head of Iran’s Cinema Organization said the filmmakers should have been the voice of the oppressed people of Iran by speaking out against the crimes committed by Americans and Europeans against Iran.
The film “Holy Spider” suggests there was little official pressure to catch the murderer, who ends up a hero among the religious right. Ebrahimi plays a journalist trying to solve the serial murders of prostitutes.
“This film is about women. It’s about their bodies. It’s a movie full of faces, hair, hands, feet, breasts, sex—everything that is impossible to show in Iran,” Ebrahimi said.
Director Abbasi insisted the film should not be seen as controversial. “Everything shown here is part of people’s everyday life. There is enough evidence that people in Iran have sex, too. There’s ample evidence of prostitution in every city of Iran,” he told reporters.
A nine-member jury selected the awardees, headed by French actor Vincent Lyndon. One of the jury members was Iranian director and two-time Oscar winner Asghar Farhadi.
There were 21 films in competition for the best picture Palme d’Or award including two from Iran—“Holy Spider” and Saeed Roustayi’s “Leila’s Brothers.” But the award went to Swedish director Ruben Ostlund for “Triangle of Sadness.”
The title “Holy Spider” refers to the street layout in Mashhad, which looks like a spider web with the Shrine in the center.