IRANIAN officials and activists warned today that the passage of a parliamentary Bill increasing marriage loans for women aged under 23 would lead to an increase in child brides.
MP Rahim Zare announced a rise in the budget for the loans from 50 million tomans to 70 million tomans, with boys under 25 and girls under 23 to receive 100 tomans each.
But Deputy Minister of Sports and Youth Mohammad Mehdi Tondgouyan argued that the law would increase “moral deviations” and encourage people to marry just to receive the money.
History shows from Iraq to Libya, and now Iran, that regime-change fantasies rarely deliver stability — but they always deliver human and economic cost, says MARYAM ESLAMDOUST
MOHAMMAD OMIDVAR, a senior figure in the Tudeh Party of Iran, tells the Morning Star that mass protests are rooted in poverty, corruption and neoliberal rule and warns against monarchist revival and US-engineered regime change
The Islamic Republic is attempting to deflect from its own failures with a scapegoating campaign against vulnerable and impoverished migrants, writes JAMSHID AHMADI


