Struan Stevenson, a former Member of the European Parliament, explained that the regime is openly blaming the estimated 33,000 street children for spreading the coronavirus, which will do nothing to help the status of the children, some as young as five, who are “starved and abused” as they try to make money through menial labour or selling small items.

Stevenson said that this claim by the regime that child labourers are the biggest source of the virus was “completely unsubstantiated” and had subjected these vulnerable children to more abuse. 

In 1994, the regime ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child but issued the caveat that they would stop abiding by the convention if it conflicted with Iranian laws, which allowed them to repeatedly violated their obligations for which they have faced rightful condemnation, but the abuse has not stopped.

Stevenson wrote: “Now, as the Iranian economy collapses and the country is faced with thousands, if not millions of hungry children, the mullahs have chosen to blame Iran’s street kids for spreading the virus to deflect attention from their own rank incompetence and venal corruption.”

He highlighted how the true death toll hit 50,000 days ago, something the regime is eager to hide through threats, and that the regime made the situation worse by sending supplies of personal protective equipment and ventilators to their terrorist allies and militia proxies while selling the leftovers at outrageously high prices.

Stevenson wrote: “President Hassan Rouhani has insisted that his government has overcome the disease and ordered people to go back to work, spreading the contagion. But the latest phase of blaming the virus on vulnerable children has plumbed the depths of the mullahs’ depravity.”

He then cited a recent video from Tehran where a member of the Basij force is threatening two children, who cannot be over 7, into eating the flowers they were trying to sell, including the plastic wrapping. This video, which shows the children choking, is a desperate attempt to scare other street children against selling items on the street.

Stevenson wrote: “This is how the Iranian regime treats its deprived kids. The governments of most civilized nations would deem feeding any starving children as a priority. But the repressive regime regards them with derision as some sort of contaminant to be cleansed from the streets.”

He concluded by addressing that the regime has stolen from the Iranian people when they could more than afford to feed everyone and that the regime is not fit for the rule in Iran.

 

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