A look at child labor in Iran

A look at child labor in Iran

Children gathering trash in Iran in order to sell and make ends meet

Analysis by PMOI/MEK

Iran, September 26, 2019—The new school year in Iran began on September 23. At this time of the year across the globe, scenes of children rushing to schools, smiling and laughing, bring joy not only to their parents, but also to those wishing to provide the very best for their country’s future generation.

In Iran under the mullahs’ regime, however, the right to education, considered one of the main fundamental rights of children throughout the world by UNICEF, is becoming an unattainable dream.

Based on numbers published by state-run media in Iran, the number of children involved child labor is increasing and those actually in schools are unfortunately decreasing with each passing year. More children are joining the “army” of child labor, selling goods and roaming the streets of large cities checkered across Iran.

Despite the fact that regime officials go the distance in publishing doctored reports to place the blame of this social catastrophe on any source but the regime, the footprints of this phenomenon can be traced back to its actual cause through remarks made by authorities.

The main reason lies in the unprecedented and ever-increasing poverty that is spreading across Iran like a plague resulting from the regime’s unpopular policies that are plundering the Iranian people. Millions of families are in such dire conditions that they literally cannot even adequately feed their children, let alone provide for the fees of sending their children to school.

As a result, Iran’s younger generation, the future of this country, have no choice but to roam the streets and work in dangerous workshops in a desperate attempt to help their families make ends meet.

“Currently, there are 3.5 million children out of school across the country,” said Hafizollah Fazeli, a regime insider, to the Tasnim news agency, affiliated to the regime’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) Quds Force.

The state-run Hamdeli newspaper acknowledged the fact that economic poverty is one of the main reasons of families not being able to send their children to school.

“The economic poverty engulfing families is creating a major obstacle in advancing education. One of the most important results is children forced into labor outside of their houses, preventing them from going to school,” the September 22 piece reads in part.

While carefully avoiding any mention of the role of regime officials on this matter, the Hamdeli article sheds light on the fact that the cost of public education is becoming a heavy burden for Iranian families.

“Education is becoming more of a purchased good these days than a service and this is the most important reason why children drop out of schools and enter the labor force… Education is now considered a purchased good and is provided only if a family has the ability to purchase it… As a result, only those affording the costs will be able to have access to education,” the read adds.

All the while, the main concern of this and other state-run outlets lies not in the fact that Iran’s children are deprived of education. In fact, they consider this phenomenon a “time bomb” threatening the regime’s security. Regime officials are concerned about poverty evolving into a source of dissent and social unrest.

“The truth is that children who drop out of schools have the potential of acting as a time bomb that can explode any day and any moment. Such an explosion that can not only destroy themselves, but also inflict damage to others and the society,” the Hamdeli piece concludes, reflecting the dire concerns of the ruling regime in Iran.

Furthermore, incompetent officials in the regime’s Education Ministry and associated department in provinces and cities across the country on one hand, and allocating a very dismal budget for one of the most important ministries on the other are adding to this crisis and resulting in more children dropping out of schools.

When the Education Ministry refuses to provide paychecks to hardworking Iranian teachers and has neglected the issue of a shortage in classrooms for 40 years now, it is quite obvious that the mullahs’ regime is neither able nor willing to prevent the catastrophe of young children dropping out of schools.

All the while, daily reports are published in Iranian media of regime officials running off stealing millions, and at times billions of dollars, while tens of millions of people are barely providing a single meal for their families.

There is no doubt that with each passing day public hatred of the mullahs’ regime is escalating as we speak. All dilemmas in Iran under the mullahs’ regime can only be resolved by targeting the root of these crises, being the very regime ruling this country for over four decades now.

Daily protests and demonstrations, and repeating anti-regime protests, are a signal of how the Iranian people have realized this undeniable reality and are joining the organized resistance bent on bringing an end to the mullahs’ corrupt rule.

Iran: Who’s putting “maximum pressure” on the people?

Iran: Who’s putting “maximum pressure” on the people?

Archive photo: Iranians take to the streets protesting the dire economic conditions. Tehran, June 2018

Analysis by PMOI/MEK

Iran, September 25, 2019—In his latest speech just a few days ago, Iranian regime Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei used the term “maximum pressure” 20 times. Now, whenever Iranian officials talk about maximum pressure and the pressure that the current sanctions regime is placing on the Islamic Republic of Iran, they try deceitfully to pretend that the target of this maximum pressure campaign are ordinary Iranians, especially poorer ones.

There is no doubt that ordinary Iranians are under maximum pressure that is even increasing by the day. However, this pressure is actually exerted by the corrupt Iranian regime itself, which has impoverished Iranians to a point where more than 70 percent live under the poverty line.

What Iranian officials mean by “economic pressure” and “maximum pressure” is first and foremost the pressure that the regime feels on itself from the inside and outside, and its first solution to compensate this pressure is to further insert its corrupt hands into the pockets of Iranian families.

Referring to protests by Iranians who lost their savings in financial institutions affiliated with the Iranian regime, Saeed Laylaz, an Iranian economist close to the faction of Iranian regime President Hassan Rouhani, said on September 22: “In an attempt to calm down the situation and escape these uprisings, the government dedicated 330 trillion rials [around $2.75 billion at the current rate of approximately 120,000 rials per dollar]."

“However, the money landed mostly in the pockets of gangs that are behind these financial and credit institutions. This 330 trillion rials of powerful money that the government had to print created the equal of 2.55 quadrillion rials of liquidity (around $21.25 billion) in this short period of time. At the time of printing, this was equal to 14 to 15 percent of the overall liquidity that was created in the entire history of Iran from day one until 2017. This number created an unchecked inflation across the country,” Laylaz continued.

Referring to the regime’s manipulation of foreign currency exchange rates in 2017 under the pretext of containing the first round of sanctions against the Iranian regime, Saeed Laylaz further said: “We witnessed how the price of the U.S. dollar reached 180,000 to 190,000 rials in the market. The rate of foreign currency shouldn’t have crossed the 80,000 rial threshold, under any condition and measure. This incident created one of the rarest cases of corruption in Iran’s economic history, in terms of quantity.”

“I guess that from early 2018 until early 2019, a total of 7 to 9 quadrillion rials (equal to $58.3 to $75 billion) of corruption, embezzlement and misuse has been inflicted upon the Iranian economy,” he concludes.

Revealing the true source of “maximum pressure” on poor Iranian families, the economic expert continues by saying that this unprecedented corruption “places unprecedented pressure on the impoverished branches of the Iranian society.”

“When in April 2018, the inflation rate reached 52 percent and the inflation rate for food items reached 70 to 80 percent, I guess that the inflation rate for segments of Iran’s poor people, meaning the first and second deciles, was in the three digits. This is a national catastrophe,” Laylaz said.

Iranian political prisoner brutally tortured, denied medical treatment

Iranian political prisoner brutally tortured, denied medical treatment

Iranian political prisoner Mehdi Farahi Shandiz

Reporting by PMOI/MEK

Iran, September 17, 2019—According to reports from inside Iran, regime authorities severely tortured Iranian political prisoner Mehdi Farahi Shandiz in Karaj Central Prison. Prison guards transferred Farahi Shandiz to the prison’s medical center after he lost consciousness under torture.

The Iranian regime’s repressive forces tortured Mehdi Farahi Shandiz while he was on hunger strike.

After transferring the political prisoner to the medical center, the prison guards did not allow him to receive full treatment and immediately returned him to solitary confinement after he received minimum care.

Farahi Shandiz suffered from a heart attack in July and was transferred to the hospital, where he was diagnosed with diabetes and heart failure.

It is worth reminding that earlier this month, Iranian political prisoner Mehdi Farahi Shandiz had staged a protest and chanted slogans after prison authorities ignored the demands of prisoners. During the event, prison authorities attacked him and forced him into solitary confinement.

On September 7, Iranian political prisoners in Karaj Central Prison protested to the poor living conditions inside the facility. Many of the political prisoners in the facility are kept in harsh conditions. In one of the prison’s halls, more than 200 prisoners don’t even have beds or a cell. They’re forced to stay in the open, under the sun and rain, and they sleep in hallways.

In this regard, the political prisoners of Karaj Central Prison wrote a letter to prison authorities on September 7. But the authorities refused to pay attention to the protests and warnings of the prisoners. The continued silence and inaction of prison authorities spurred Farahi Shandiz to be more vocal in his protests to the harsh and inhuman conditions of the prison.

Iranian political prisoner Mehdi Farahi Shandiz is an electrical engineering graduate and a high school math and physics teacher from Tehran. In 2011, Iranian security forces arrested Farahi Shandiz on charges of acting against national security and insulting Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of the regime. The Iranian regime usually uses vague national security allegations to impose heavy sentences on political prisoners.

The regime’s judiciary sentenced Farahi Shandiz to three years in prison, but extended his sentence to 12 years after accusing him of other vague charges. In the past eight years, Farahi Shandiz has suffered from impairment to his sight and hearing and fractured ribs under torture.

In 2013, Farahi Shandiz suffered from dark spots in his eyesight after being severely tortured in Evin prison. In 2017, the head of the Karaj Penitentiary severely beat Farahi Shandiz, fracturing his ribs and causing severe damage to his hearing.

Before transferring him to solitary confinement, Karaj Penitentiary’s authorities kept Farahi Shandiz in the ward of dangerous prisoners in breach of the principle of separation of crimes.

MEK: 54 years of struggle for freedom in Iran

MEK: 54 years of struggle for freedom in Iran

PMOI 54th founding anniversary

Iran, September 6, 2019—On the occasion of the 54^th anniversary of the founding of the People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), Dr. Behrooz Pouyan, political science expert from Tehran, wrote an in-depth article about the history of the Iranian people's struggle for freedom and the role of the MEK in defending the fundamental rights of Iranians in the past 54 years. Excerpts from the article, originally published in the Persian edition of the PMOI/MEK website, follow:

In evaluating social movements, there are two key criteria. One is the general structure of the movement, including its goal, strategy, ideology, the organization of its members and their resolve in pursuing the movement's goals. The second criterion is the impact the movement has on the society.

In respect to the first criterion, I believe that the MEK, with 54 years of struggle for freedom, is an exceptional movement in the history of Iran, a fact that is irrefutable to it its proponents and opponents. This is an organization with a dynamic and scientific ideology, progressive goals, human values, a strong structure, and an unbreakable resolve, proven by more than 120,000 martyrs fallen for freedom in the past half century.

Each of the martyrs of this organization are proof of the determination and honesty of this organization in its goals, including the first MEK martyrs under the Shah's rule, the martyrs of the 1980s and especially the 1988 massacre, the martyrs of the National Liberation Army of Iran in the Eternal Light operation, and MEK members executed by the regime in recent years.

Also among them are MEK members who were killed in the attacks of the agents of [former Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri] al-Maliki and [Iranian regime supreme leader Ali] Khamenei, especially during the September 1, 2013, attack against Camp Ashraf, and the martyrs in Camp Liberty. All of these martyrs prove the resolve of the MEK to bring freedom and equality.

Can any false pretender of freedom and equality pay such a price? Which individual, group or movement can claim to appreciate the importance and value of freedom more than the MEK and its shining stars? This has made the MEK a revolutionary and unprecedented movement. Therefore, in ranking contemporary Iranian movements, there's no doubt that the MEK would stand at the top.

The achievements of the MEK

The characteristic of the MEK, which has put behind 54 years of history, is that since its founding, it has used the experience of revolutionary movements that preceded it. This helped the MEK close the gaps and fissures that made previous movements vulnerable.

To understand the achievements of the MEK, we must review its history in reverse order. We'll start by taking a quick look at the current state of the Iranian society, the mullahs' regime and the MEK itself. What factors contributed to the MEK becoming the only credible alternative to the mullahs' rule in Iran and across the world, driving the mullahs' regime toward its collapse and the Iranian society toward another revolution? Is it by happenstance that people are chanting "Down with the rule of the mullahs" in the streets of Iran?

If the Iranian regime has lost its legitimacy, we must ask, how did it lose it? Who first refused to legitimize the rule of the mullahs? It is worth reminding that the MEK did not take part in the referendum for the constitution of the rule of the mullahs [after the 1979 revolution], and since the beginning, contrary to the false pretenders of freedom and democracy, they did not give it legitimacy.

How did the mullahs' regime lose its international legitimacy? Did western governments, which for years backed this repressive regime, suddenly decided to abandon the appeasement policy and change course? If the MEK and the Iranian resistance did not expose the regime's terrorism and nuclear program, would the appeasement policy be defeated, and would it become possible for global politics to support the interests and desires of the Iranian people? If the MEK's decades-long efforts to expose the suppression and human rights violations of the regime did not exist, would the mullahs be caught in the human rights trap?

Moreover, it is worth reminding that when no political and social movement cared about human rights, it was the MEK that made it its priority to defend the political, social and human rights of all the Iranian people. Today, some people try to make a business out of opposing the regime's forced hijab, but they seem to forget that in 1979, a month after the revolution, the MEK staged the first demonstration against Khomeini's forced hijab law and defended the freedoms of Iranian women.

Also, when all political groups had been caught in the mullah-made trap of the war against Iraq (1980-1988), it was only the MEK that delegitimized the destructive war and led widespread efforts to end it, including by introducing a peace plan.

Today, thanks to the honest efforts and sacrifices of the MEK, the Iranian society has distanced itself from the mullahs' regime and is pushing it toward its overthrow. While the regime and its front organizations who pose as opposition groups try to marginalize the MEK, history will undoubtedly reveal the truth.