Cementing the Deal

“A dear brother from the parliament came here and in a very strange manner swore to God that ‘we will pour cement on you and kill you.’ Is that how a person intending to serve the Islamic Republic should talk? That they pour cement on me and bury me in the core of the Arak reactor?”

The Iranian parliament, Majles, experienced another stormy episode on Sunday, the 9th of October 2015. The open session held to discuss the draft on implementing the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action turned into a platform for another encounter between the nuclear negotiating team and vocal critics of the nuclear deal. But the star of yesterday's episode was undoubtedly Rouhollah Hosseinian, member of the radical Principlist party Paydari.

“Negotiations were carried out within the framework [set by the Supreme Leader]” said Ali-Akbar Salehi, Head of the Atomic Organization and member of the nuclear negotiating team, during his speech in the parliament. “I have remained silent until today … [but] a dear brother from the parliament came here and in a very strange manner swore to God that ‘we will pour cement on you and kill you.”

The story, as the Reformist website Entekhab quoted an eyewitness, goes as such:

Hosseinian threatened Zarif and Salehi at least three times in a serious and angry manner.

The first time, before Salehi entered the parliament, he went to Zarif … and told him: ‘you want to take out the core of the Arak reactor and fill it with cement. Get ready, [because] we will put you in place of the core and pour cement on you., to which Zarif replied in disbelief: ‘that is so kind of you.’ … Later he told him: we will try and sentence you with God’s help.

At the tribune, Salehi swore that the JCPOA would neither slow down nor stop nuclear enrichment and R&D. He also assured the parliament that the nuclear negotiating team has acted within the framework set by the Supreme Leader. “The JCPOA will bring us national pride and dignity,” he said. However, his remarks were not heartwarming for the anti-deal MPs; and when the Head of the Atomic Organization became emotional and pointed to threats of death, hardline members approached the tribune in order to stop him from continuing his speech. The tension abated when other MPs intervened and calmed the situation down.

Hardliners tried to do some damage control after the media’s extensive coverage of the threats against Salehi. “I was just making a joke; but Salehi took it literally,” Abouzar Nadimi, Principlist member of the parliament quoted Hosseinian. A few hours later, Hamid Rasaee, hardline member of the parliament, published a photo on Instagram, standing on the bedside of Hosseinian in a hospital. Rasaee blamed Ali-Akbar Salehi for ‘making public a private joke’ and claimed that Hosseinian had to be taken to the hospital following the tense parliamentary session, and due to heavy pressure on “dignified members of Majles”.

“Pray for Rouhollah Hosseinian,” Rasaee asked his Instagram followers.