Analysis by PMOI/MEK
Iran, October 30, 2021—The judiciary of the Iranian regime in Qom province, central Iran, sentenced the father of three children to 40 lashes and ten months in prison for stealing three packets of cashew nuts.
"Following the publication of a judge's verdict for the thief of three packages of cashew nuts and the severe sentence of ten months imprisonment and 40 lashes, the Fars news agency reporter followed up the case with relevant officials, realizing that report was true and not fake news," according to report wired on October 25 by the Fars news agency, an outlet linked to the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC).
This cruel sentencing resulted in a major reaction of anger among the Iranian society and on social media.
Many people have compared the tragic story of this poor man with Victor Hugo’s famous Les Misérables.
The court sentence was issued at a time when trillions of rials from the Iranian people's property is being looted daily by regime officials and government-linked entities. All the while, the regime's judiciary is doing nothing.
"40 million people need immediate assistance," according to downsized government statistics published on October 25th in the state-run Bahar News website.
According to the same numbers, nearly 500 people in Iran go below the absolute poverty line every hour. The state-run Asr-e Iran website quoted the Ministry of Welfare: "If this 'catastrophe' and the officials’ silence is not ' indecency', then what is?"
The Asr-e Iran website reporter describes those who have fallen below the absolute poverty line as those whose "income is only enough for their food" and "more than a third of Iranians live not in poverty, but in absolute poverty. Based on this shocking recent report, the number of people living below the absolute poverty line a year ago was 26 million, and in the past year, another four million have fallen below the absolute poverty line, bringing the number to 30 million," according to a piece published on October 24 by the state-run Asr-e Iran website.
"When the facilities necessary for a dignified and developing lifestyle cannot be provided, and employment is scarce, adequate food and treatment will become the dreams of vulnerable families," according to piece published on October 25 by the state-run Shargh daily.
The current widespread poverty and the fact that a large part of the population is below the absolute poverty line is the flip coin of the astronomical fortunes of regime officials, and institutions linked to the mullahs’ Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who controls a large part of the country's economy.
In 2014, Mohsen Safaei Farahani, Deputy Minister of Economy in Mohammad Khatami's government, voiced grave concerns in this regard. "About 120 different institutions, entities and foundations have such a large economic scope that there is absolutely no proper control over their performance. About 50 percent of Iran's GDP is controlled by these institutions,” he said, according to a June 9, 2014, report by the state-run Khabar Online website.
Most of the institutions and foundations that contribute to this institutionalized plundering are linked to Khamenei, such as the IRGC, the Headquarters for Executing the Order of the Imam (SETAD), (referred to by the U. S. Treasury Department as The Execution of Imam Khomeini’s Order, ‘EIKO’), and other such entities.
The SETAD’s influence and domination over the Iranian economy surpasses even that of the IRGC. It is the most assertive of the so-called “non-government public sector” companies when it comes to the confiscation of assets.
These institutions are plundering the mere property of poor Iranians while the regime brutally oppresses the people’s slightest social and economic demands. This is how the mullahs’ regime defines justice.
With such horrible conditions that this regime has imposed on Iran, the deprived and poor are punished for stealing to feed their children with 40 lashes and ten months in prison.
