Behrooz Morovati, an activist for disability rights and the director of the 19 May Disabilities Campaign, announced that “this month,” the pensions of tens of thousands of beneficiaries of the Welfare Organization, who had been receiving pensions until March, have been cut by the Targeted Subsidies Organization without any explanation.
The director of the Disabilities Campaign told the regime’s ILNA news agency that, based on reports received by the campaign and the Beneficiaries News Channel, the “massive pension cuts” have affected about 20 percent of the Welfare Organization’s beneficiaries for “two consecutive months.”
This disability rights activist added that until last year, the pensions were directly deposited by the Relief Committee and the Welfare Organization. “However, according to Clause 2 of Addendum 8 of the 2024 Budget Law, the responsibility for depositing pensions for the Relief Committee and the Welfare Organization beneficiaries has been transferred to the Targeted Subsidies Organization this year.”
According to the follow-ups by the Disabilities Campaign, although the monthly list of beneficiaries is confirmed by the Welfare Organization and the Relief Committee and then communicated to the Targeted Subsidies Organization, the organization “has cut their pensions due to ambiguities in some accounts.”
Morovati added, “Beneficiaries whose pensions were deposited into the head of the household’s account due to their young age are among those affected by this pension cut.”
Morovati stated that with the intervention of the Audit Court, there was a promise to pay the April pensions to those beneficiaries whose pensions were cut last month. “However, with the repeated cuts for two consecutive months, it seems new issues are arising.”
Expressing concern over the potential pension cuts in May for another group of Welfare Organization beneficiaries, this disability rights activist said that these conditions “strengthen the suspicion of targeted pension cuts for thousands of beneficiaries by the Targeted Subsidies Organization.”
The ongoing problems for people with disabilities and the government’s neglect have led to continuous protests by these individuals in front of various government agencies and institutions. In this regard, Zabihollah Khodaeian, head of the National Inspection Organization, said on December 4, 2023, “If the officials take action, many of the problems of people with disabilities can be resolved.”
The state-run Asr Iran website also emphasized in a report on March 3 that “people with disabilities often protest in the snow and cold or heat in front of the Parliament, the Ministry of Health, or any organization that can solve their problems, hoping that someone will hear their cries.”
According to this media outlet, people with disabilities are forced to wait for hours in the street in their wheelchairs, hoping that someone in Iran will hear their voices.
It is worth mentioning that Article 27 of the Law on the Protection of Persons with Disabilities obliges the government to “determine and allocate the necessary funds in the annual budget laws to provide livelihood assistance to severely and profoundly disabled individuals who are unemployed and have no income,” but this part of the law has not been implemented so far.
