Commander Zarei, the head of Tehran’s Police force whose heavy handed measures ‎against “social deviants” raised many voices of concern, was arrested last week in a ‎sleaze house amidst six prostitutes. Officials from the judiciary are now scrambling to ‎investigate the issue without fanfare.‎

This is not the first time that a senior military or civil official has been caught in the act ‎of some wrongdoing. But the cover-up and concealment of such scandals by judiciary ‎officials has a long tradition. However, if a cover-up could be successful 10 years ago, ‎today in a world of such diffused and massive information networks a cover-up is ‎impossible. No issue that authorities try to conceal these days remains hidden and it is ‎published somewhere on news-sites or websites on the Internet.‎

Furthermore, attempts to conceal and cover-up scandals or issues only cost the state its ‎respect and trust. An accurate and detailed disclosure of the Zarei case can set the state ‎apart from such corrupt officials who in this case played with the public standing of the ‎police. Also, such disclosure will make all others who may be tempted to engage in ‎similar corrupt practices and misuse of power think twice and fearful of public disgrace.‎

It is noteworthy that just as the news of the police chief’s arrest in the presence of six ‎women in compromising conditions was announced, the governor of the state of New ‎York appeared in front of television cameras and apologized to his family and the ‎residents of New York for his sexual scandal as exposed by the New York Times ‎newspaper, and subsequently resigned from his post. Eliot Spitzer who was a rising star ‎in the Democratic Party and with presidential aspirations, went under intense and ‎immediate scrutiny by the media and the representatives of the public after the sex ‎scandal was exposed. Neither the Republicans nor Democrats appear to have made ‎serious efforts to cover-up the event.‎

But in Iran things are different and Zaeri and company feel secure under the tradition of ‎official cover-ups by the sate. This is despite the fact that the public would have respect ‎for the state if corruption and wrongdoing by public officials were dealt with by the state ‎in a fair and open manner. ‎

What disgraces the state is the unfair treatment of wrongdoing, violations, and not the ‎expose of the scandal. By not confronting the issue openly and fairly the public views ‎those responsible, i.e. senior judiciary officials, to be accomplices to the scandal.‎

The arrest of Zarei also demonstrates the kind of commitment that people who in the ‎Islamic Republic of Iran instruct the public on how to dress and then chase people on the ‎streets to enforce such rules actually have! This should be a lesson for officials to look ‎seriously into the social policies that have been vigorously pursued in recent years.‎

The cover-up efforts by judiciary authorities and the statements by the Office of the ‎Leader to pursue the issue in a quiet manner strengthen the suspicions that there may be ‎other senior authorities involved in the case.‎

Only the transparent efforts of the senior judiciary officials can reveal the facts. But time ‎is short, and soon the public will make its own judgment.‎