NCRI Staff
NCRI – Iranian regime’s deputy Labor Minister had said that there are two million hungry people in the country. A really shocking figure, says a regime’s MP.
Member of regime parliament’s Social Affairs Committee believes that with this many people suffering hunger, the total number of country’s deprived people should be much higher.
State-run IRNA news agency has reported on a meeting titled ‘The 2018 Budget: will it increase or reduce poverty?’, in which regime’s deputy Labor and Social Welfare Minister Ahmad Maydari said “according to domestic and international estimates, between two to four percent of Iranian people suffer extreme poverty, meaning they can’t afford to feed themselves, something also referred to as violent poverty.”
Earlier, Ahmad Maydari had announced that the country’s number of hungry people is around two million. Yet, some of regime’s own experts believe that this is a too optimistic figure, saying that the number of people suffering extreme poverty reaches five million.
Meanwhile, Masoud Rezaei, deputy chair of regime parliament’s Social Affairs Committee, doubts Maydari’s figure, saying that if the number of hungry people is this much, then the total number of the deprived will definitely be much higher.
Criticizing regime’s Statistics Center, Rezaei says in his interview with state-run Etemad-Online website “before anything else, our main problem is how to define these terms and indicators, meaning we don’t exactly know what it means to be jobless and this is the reason behind different figures.”
Pointing out that the same problem is also true with regard to the issue of hunger, deputy chair of regime parliament’s Social Affairs Committee then asks “who is hungry? The ones who can’t afford their daily meals or the ones whose monthly salary is not enough to meet their basic needs?”
Masoud Rezaei then points out that “if it’s true that two million Iranians can’t afford their daily meals, then it would be too shocking. Besides, if we add to this figure the number of people whose earning is not enough for covering their basic needs, then we will be faced with a huge ‘deprived’ population.”
Regime’s responsibility towards hungry people
Member of regime parliament’s Social Affairs Committee acknowledged that “we could say that not a specific body or ministry, but the entire regime is responsible for this. When faced with such a phenomenon, we have to put the blame on the entire system.”
Many of residents of marginal urban areas, where unemployment rate is higher than the country’s average, are among the society’s poorest population. The terrorist Quds Force’s Tasnim news agency quotes Anushirvan Mohseni, head of regime’s Welfare Organization, as saying “12-13 million Iranians live in marginal urban areas.”
Earlier, regime’s Minister of Roads and Urban Development had said on December 23 that there are 19 million Iranians who live in poor places, meaning the places where they live lack the least amenities and safety standards.
Iran’s widespread protests started on December 28, 2017, were first to protest against rising prices, but the protesters then quickly targeted the entire regime.
Experts believe that although Iranians suffer serious economic problems and high unemployment rate, but the protesters have mainly focused on indiscrimination, injustice, rentiering, and economic corruption.
