Iran: Air Pollution Disaster Regime’s Ringleaders Admit to Unmanageable Crisis and 50,000 Annual Victims

Mrs. Maryam Rajavi: By looting the people’s wealth and wasting thousands of billions of dollars on suppression, anti-patriotic nuclear projects, and warmongering, the mullahs’ regime has deprived the people of the minimum standards of living, and poverty, inflation, high prices, and air pollution are worsening every day.

The escalating and deadly air pollution crisis has engulfed various cities in Iran to such an extent that on Saturday, November 29, state media announced school closures in the provinces of Tehran, East Azerbaijan, West Azerbaijan, Isfahan, Alborz, Ardabil, Bushehr, Hormozgan, Khuzestan, Kurdistan, Gilan, Hamedan, and Kermanshah.
The governor of Tehran helplessly confessed: ‘The issue of air pollution in Tehran has moved beyond a manageable problem and has become a crisis… Unfortunately, we went through a critical situation last week… The accumulation has finally reached a point where, as you say, it has turned into a crisis’ (State TV, November 28).
A state-run media outlet wrote: ‘In recent days, with its high pollution index, Tehran has become the most polluted city in the world, even surpassing New Delhi, one of Asia’s most polluted capitals’ (Fararu website, November 28).
The Research Center of the regime’s Majlis reported: ‘According to the Ministry of Health’s assessment for the year 1402 (March 2023 – March 2024), an estimated 30,692 premature deaths attributed to air pollution occurred in 57 cities with a total population of approximately 48 million’ (Entekhab website, May 30). Earlier this year, the regime’s Health Minister announced the annual death toll from air pollution to be 50,000 (Entekhab, April 8).
On November 29, the IRGC-affiliated Fars news agency acknowledged the huge economic damages of this crisis, writing: ‘Tehran loses between $3.3 to $3.7 billion annually due to the three factors of pollution, traffic, and mental health alone. These costs are equal to or even greater than the annual investment needed for reforming the urban development model, public transportation, and metropolis management.’
Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, said that the air pollution disaster stems from the plundering policies of the mullahs’ regime, whose sole aim is to preserve the rule of the Velayat-e Faqih (absolute clerical rule), and for which the lives, health, and welfare of the people are of the least importance. By looting the people’s wealth and wasting thousands of billions of dollars on suppression, anti-patriotic nuclear projects, and warmongering, this regime has deprived the people of the minimum standards of living. Under this religious dictatorship, the catastrophes of poverty, inflation, high prices, and air pollution are worsening every day.

Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI)
30 November 2025