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.