17 July,2012 07:20 AM IST | | Agencies
Against a backdrop of lengthening food queues, Esmail Ahmadi-Moghaddam, the head of Iran's law enforcement forces, has warned that films showing scenes of people eating chicken could provoke attacks on the country's more well-off citizens.
"They show chicken being eaten in movies while somebody might not be able to buy it," said Ahmadi-Moghaddam, the brother-in-law of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
No harm, no fowl: As chicken prices have tripled over the past year, Iranian authorities don't want the media stirring people's emotions by showing people eating chicken. Pic/Getty Images
"Films are now the windows of society and some people observing this class gap might say that we will take knives and take our rights from the rich. IRIB [Iran's state broadcaster] should not be the shop window for showing all which is not accessible."
The country's already creaking economy suffered a further blow this month when a European Union boycott of oil sales took effect at the same time as a US embargo penalising countries that continued to buy Iran's crude oil.
In recent weeks, shoppers have had to spend 70,000 rials (Rs 315) for a kilogram of chicken - around three times last year's price.
