Iran’s Currency Falls To An All-Time Low With Prospect Of US Action
Iran’s currency, rial, hit an all-time low on Monday amid fears of US retaliation for a drone attack over the weekend that killed three American servicemen in Jordan.
Iran’s currency, rial, hit an all-time low on Monday amid fears of US retaliation for a drone attack over the weekend that killed three American servicemen in Jordan.
The US dollar rose to more than 584,000 rials, the highest since February 2022, when it briefly traded at that level. The euro topped 630,000 and the British pound reached 740,000 rials.
President Joe Biden announced on Sunday that Iranian-backed militia were responsible for striking a US base near the Jordanian and Syrian border killing 3 and injuring more than 30 service members. Later in the day, he vowed retaliation against those responsible.
This brings the rial’s fall to more than 15 percent since the beginning of January, when tensions began to rise with attacks on international shipping by Iran-backed Houthis and US retaliatory strikes.
The Iranian currency, which has steadily lost value since the 1979 revolution, began depreciating in 2018, when then-president Donald Trump withdrew from the JCPOA nuclear deal and imposed sanctions on Iran. Since then, the dollar rose from 42,000 rials to more than 580,000. Before the establishment of the Islamic Republic in 1979, the dollar traded at 70 rials.
With annual inflation hovering above 40 percent for three years, the Iranian government faces a precarious situation. The fall of the rial is bound to fuel more inflation and the impoverishment of the population, which is already facing rising prices.
For decades, Iranian filmmakers, including Farhadi, have been compelled to depict female characters with their hair covered by a headscarf or a tightly fitted hat, along with loose-fitting clothing that conceals the neck, arms, and legs.
Farhadi says he will not cover women's hair in his films “systematically” as long as compulsory hijab rules are in place and Iranians defy the ban. “I will not make films in Iran as long as I am not free from this constraint,” he told Le Monde in an interview conducted last month on the sidelines of Les Arcs Film Festival in France where he chaired the jury.
The rule applies even when the characters are in places where they are supposed to have complete privacy in the story, such as their bedrooms. Filmmakers and screenwriters often must go to great lengths to avoid scenes where the appearance of the female characters in anything less than acceptable to the authorities may result in the scene being censored in pre-screening vetting by officials appointed to review films according to religious and political guidelines. Films can also lose permission for public screening.
Farhadi also told Le Monde that Iranian filmmakers persevered in creating films for four decades despite heavy censorship and repression, but in the past year film production has dropped hugely. “I can’t work in these circumstances, either.”
The director of the Academy Award winning “A Separation” and “The Salesman”, who had always insisted on staying in Iran, was criticized for often avoiding comments on political issues but like many of his colleagues, he openly supported the Woman, Life, Freedom Movement in 2022.
“I’m restless and disgusted since reading the news, this time with myself,” he wrote in an Instagram post he addressed to Mahsa Amini who fell into a coma after receiving a head injury during her arrest by the morality police in September 2022 for what they considered as “inadequate hijab”.
“Faced with this boundless cruelty, we pretend we are sleeping. We are partners in this crime,” he wrote.
In another post he urged all artists, filmmakers, intellectuals, and rights activists around the world to show solidarity with Iranian men and women by making videos, writing articles or any other way they could.
Later in April, he told Variety Magazine that he was not totally sure he would be allowed to leave the country again if he went back to Iran, as he planned to do at the time before starting to shoot his new film in the US.
“I’m not officially aware of being banned from working in Iran, but I have heard it unofficially. Moreover, I know that I’m officially banned from any business transactions. And again, unofficially, I have heard that I am banned from leaving Iran,” he said.
Farhadi’s passport was taken from him upon returning to Iran two years after winning his Academy Award for best foreign film in 2011. He was also interrogated at the airport and called in by intelligence agencies.
Many Iranian actors and other artists who publicly supported the Mahsa movement and fused to wear hijab were banned from working by the authorities. Some, like Taraneh Alidoosti who appeared in Farhadi’s Separation, and Katayoun Riahi were arrested and prosecuted for hijab rebellion.
