The website is registered at Iran’s center for regulating Iranian websites, which is linked to the Ministry of Culture and Guidance. It also claims that it will remove any content that goes against Shariah laws, however it mocks and makes fun of the Arabs which also include Iraq Shittes.

The Ahwazi Arab community of Iran, who are Arab-Iranians called the game “racist” and called for its removal.

Kazem’s widow and orphaned children have no hope of justice or even any form of compensation for this crime…

Iranian regime security forces shot and fatally injured another apparently randomly targeted young Ahwazi man on Sunday, 27 June, while he was delivering foodstuffs to his grocery store. Even more brazenly, they then arrested him for complaining at this shocking attack, ultimately leaving him to bleed to death from his injuries in a police cell. This is the twelfth such killing by regime forces targeting members of the brutalised Ahwazis in Iran since January of this year.

Kazem Hazbawi, a 27-year-old shop owner, was shot at close range and seriously injured for no apparent reason by members of a regime security patrol as he drove through a regime checkpoint in the city of Muhammarah on the way to open his grocery store. When Kazem, a married father of four young children, bleeding heavily from his wounds, got out of his car and confronted the officers responsible, demanding to know the reason for shooting him, he was arrested for daring to challenge the absolute authority of the regime’s thuggish security forces.  Rather than taking Kazem, a widely respected and popular local figure, to a hospital for treatment of his injuries, the regime personnel drove the bleeding man to a local detention centre and left him in a cell where he died soon afterwards.

As is usual in these cases, Kazem’s widow and orphaned children have no hope of justice or even any form of compensation for this crime. Instead, Iranian regime police and security forces enjoy absolute impunity, more especially in targeting Ahwazis and other minorities, who are subjected to blatant systemic racism in addition to relentless persecution.  As Arabs, Ahwazis are singled out for persecution by the regime, with ‘No Arabs’ signs being common at medical clinics and other facilities in Iran.

In this case, as in the other killings of Ahwazi civilians since the start of the year, Kazem was unarmed and had committed no offence, much less any remotely dangerous action. Any complaints about such killings are met by regime authorities with claims that the individual failed to stop at a checkpoint or other invariably false accusations, presented as justification for the wanton use of deadly force by trigger-happy regime forces.   No investigations are launched into these racist murders. On the contrary, any effort to take legal action is overwhelmingly likely to result in the complainants being persecuted, harassed and possibly facing false charges and imprisonment themselves. Similarly, victims’ families are warned that any effort to raise international awareness of these crimes and of the regime’s persecution generally by communicating with human rights organisations overseas will see them arrested and imprisoned; this is no idle threat, but standard regime policy in an effort to silence any calls for justice and conceal the regime’s crimes from the world. 

One of the Ahwazi human rights activists working with DUSC has been talking with witnesses, as well as family and friends in an effort to document the events surrounding Kazem’s murder. He told us on condition of anonymity: “Kazem owned a grocery store and every week he’d travel to Abadan to purchase foodstuffs like dairy products, fruits and vegetables but when he was driving back to his home town in Muhammarah he was always stopped by the security soldiers at checkpoints. Several times they forced him to give some of his products to them for no reason. On the last occasion, Kazem was upset and said the security forces were stopping his vehicle and many other cars forcing them to pay a bribe or give some amount of whatever goods they had in their vehicles to let them go. These officers weren’t stopping Kazem and others for speeding or any traffic-related issues, but instead, they’re operating in reality as bandits disguised in security uniforms to extort bribes from poor Ahwazi civilians.”

The activist added, “We are sure they killed Kazem just because he, like many other Ahwazi drivers and motorcyclists who were shot and killed, got fed up with extortion and the theft of his goods and risked not stopping, and they killed him.”

Following Kazem’s death, regime officials added insult to injury by spreading false claims that he was suspected of carrying contraband goods. This excuse is refuted by local people who were at the scene, who said Kazem car was carrying nothing but foodstuffs like yoghurt, fruit and bottled water.

Similar checkpoint shootings are routine, with regime forces shooting 31-year-old Hassan Nasari dead in the town of Jarahi near Ma’shour city on the night of 22 May. Again, he was unarmed and had committed no offence, with regime authorities claiming he had failed to stop at checkpoints.

Similarly, on 6 May, 32-year-old Latif Alboghobeish, also from Ma’shour city, was shot dead while driving home from a funeral; again regime security forces claimed they had shot him after failing to stop at a checkpoint.

Three months ago, on 26 March, two young Ahwazi men from the city of Susa (also known as Shush) in the Ahwaz region were fatally injured after being shot by Basij militia (non-uniformed regime-controlled militia infamous for their violence) affiliated with the regime’s so-called Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). While they were not imprisoned, both died shortly after their arrival at the hospital. Witnesses reported that both men were murdered in cold blood without warning or provocation. The murdered youths were identified as 17-year-old Ebrahim Atshani and 24-year-old Mostafa Hargani. Both were unarmed and had committed no discernible crime; their families reported that they were tortured in the ambulance on the way to the hospital, for which their relatives were arrested themselves and threatened into silence for fear of their own lives.

Even if the regime’s claims that their victims had failed to stop at checkpoints were true, regime forces have never explained why they automatically adopt a shoot-to-kill policy rather than, for instance, forcing their victims to pull over or shooting at their car or motorcycle tires to disable the vehicle, as is the case elsewhere in the world.

Activists who have painstakingly documented these extrajudicial killings note that the regime security forces have never presented any evidence to substantiate their claims that their victims are carrying contraband or had failed to stop when ordered to do so. Furthermore, the activists emphasise that in none of these cases have the victims been armed, been guilty of criminal offences or presented any threat to the regime security forces. In the end, as one activist told DUSC, the regime’s checkpoints are simply devices for extortion and persecution, and those who do refuse to stop are simply registering their anger at this blatant criminality. 

Aaron Eitan Meyer, an American attorney and researcher, condemned the latest round of killings. “This is an ongoing flagrant violation of international law, of human rights, and of even the most basic concept of morality. Calling Iran a vicious gangster state feels horribly inadequate. The regime is not incidentally racist, but fundamentally – pointedly – so, and should have long since been relegated to the dustbin of history where other tyrannical oligarchies disappear once they are finally called to account. This goes beyond mere extrajudicial killings, which are themselves flatly proscribed under international law. The regime is free to continue this campaign openly and without any real consequences is a blight on us all.

“Every aspect of this is no less than an affront to the rule of law itself. Every time a young Ahwazi is gunned down in the streets. Every time Ahwazis are kidnapped by regime security, whether in the dead of night or in broad daylight. For every Ahwazi who is tortured in the hellish unmonitored regime prisons, for those whose bodies are hidden so that the horrors of the brutality they have suffered cannot be seen by their loved ones, and for those who manage to survive and flee the medievalist nightmare bearing the scars neither their bodies nor minds can hide, for all of them and more, the rule of law is nothing more than a twisted joke, perverted and weaponised by a cynical and vicious regime. And if that does not enrage us seeing it from the outside, then it should shame us for not acting.”

Decades after the infamous 1988 massacre, international human rights organisations are finally calling for an investigation into it after Ibrahim Raisi parleyed his bloody hands into high office. So longs as young Ahwazis like Kazem are being openly gunned down in the streets, condemnation of massacres past is not going to be nearly enough.

Article first published on Dur Untash Studies Center.

Rahim Hamid is an Ahwazi author, freelance journalist and human rights advocate. He tweets under @Samireza42.

The combination of all these factors means that Ahwazis, more particularly Ahwazi children, suffer from abnormally high rates of cancer and other diseases with little or no hope of recovery.

As the authors have been compelled to repeatedly state, the Iranian regime’s decades-long suppression of the Ahwazi people has taken a brutal toll on Ahwazis of all ages, but nowhere are its horrific consequences more heartbreakingly clear than when we look at the heartrending plight of Ahwazi children. 

All too often deprived of schooling, forced to scrounge amid garbage or engage in dangerous labour from the tenderest of ages, already unusually high rates of child cancer amongst Ahwazi children are rising, with thousands dying in recent years. Often their parents are unable to afford the cost of treatment, with the Iranian regime’s ‘revolutionary’ health care system demanding payment from those the regime keeps in destitution out of fear and racism.  

According to the public relations report of Ahwaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences, the capital of Ahwaz region in Iran; Dr Shokrallah Salmanzadeh, head of the province’s health centre, announced in 2017 at the National Cancer Surveillance Conference: “Every year, about, 6,000 people in Ahwaz get cancer, of which 53% are men and the rest are women.” He added: “Colorectal cancer (colon cancer), lung cancer and, skin cancer are the most common types of cancer seen in Ahwazi men. The most common types of cancer among women in Ahwaz are breast cancer, skin cancer and leukaemia (blood cancer).” The head of the Ahwaz Health Centre added: “Out of 10,465 deaths registered last year in Ahwaz, 4,906 were due to cardiovascular diseases and 1,156 due to cancer, 206 due to diabetes and 480 They died of asthma and COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease). 

Shafa Hospital is located in the regional capital, Ahwaz city, and is the second-largest regional cancer treatment centre, with almost 90 per cent of adult sufferers and all children suffering from the disease going there for treatment. The statistics cannot tell the tale properly, but we are able to reveal the horrific tragedy by telling the story of some of these children.

Yasmine is five years old; with her head shaved and her body emaciated from the ravages of cancer, only her delicate earrings show that she’s female. Despite the exhaustion in her pale face, her eyes are still full of a child’s hope. Her mother tells DUSC, “We live in Ahwaz. Since October, we have discovered she is infected with one of the strains of leukemia. She should receive chemical treatment. It is said that it could take several years. I fear we could be unable to afford the huge costs of treatment. Do you think there’s hope that Yasmine could improve?”

Yasmine is far from the only case in this ward. Around her are Hassan from Muhammarah, Atefeh from Susa, Mortada from Abadan and Maryam from Khafajiyeh. All are Ahwazi. All are children. And all are not receiving the proper care that could save their lives from a brutal and agonising disease.

Speaking to DUSC on condition of anonymity, an Ahwazi child rights activist said, “It is heartbreaking. I’m snowed under hundreds of cases of these innocent children whose ages range from 5 to 12 in Shafa and Baqai hospital. I visit these child cancer sufferers in both hospitals every two days. Before I visit them, I gather entertaining presents for them like colourful pencils, colouring books, and whatever toys I can buy for them. 

“Even though they’re so young – with the youngest being only six or seven – they’re far older than their years; they’ve been forced by illness to grow up far too fast, and they know that this disease means death will take their souls from their exhausted little bodies. Hanan, a nine-year-old girl, is one of these hundreds of Ahwazi kids with cancer – every each time I sit beside her, I‘m amazed at her deep sense of wisdom and understanding. She’s the second child of her family and has four brothers and sisters, her father works as a street vendor and desperately tries to scrape together enough money to feed his children and buy medicine for Hanan, but the health insurance doesn’t cover all the costs of Hanan’s chemotherapy treatment. She’s been diagnosed with liver cancer in 2020, each time when I give her white paper and colour painting pencils she jumps and draws beautiful child with blonde and long hair and shiny black eyes, I ask her, habibiti Hanan, who is this beautiful girl? She quietly gives me a gentle smile and responds; this is me – my mother told me God will repay me for being here for months and will heal me and my hair will grow up, and I will become beautiful once again. Look at my drawing – does she looks like me, this is me.

“Once, on November 2020, once I was waiting to visit the children in Shafa hospital, my eyes were caught by Hanan’s mother who was sitting in the yard of the hospital crying and groaning, saying, The first thing that came into my mind was that Hanan might have died. I quickly approached the mother, and said, ‘What’s happened? Tell me!’ I couldn’t understand what she was saying while she was crying and trying to speak. I asked her, ‘Why are you wearing black? Has Hanan died?’ 

“She said, ‘No, she hasn’t, but her poor father, my husband, died from corona last week.’ I said, ‘Oh my God – what about you and the rest of the children? Are you okay? Did you get tested to make sure you didn’t contract the disease?’ ‘I’m fine’, she said. ‘But what to do? How to tell Hanan her father has died?’ She continued crying, saying, ‘Hanan will notice my grief and my black robes.’

“I told her ‘Let’s not tell her anymore.’ A few weeks later, she got weaker and weaker, and she slowly lost her interests in drawing, The last time when the doctor entered her room and hugged her tight, I realised she was almost ready to fly – her doctor said, ‘The treatment isn’t working for her, I am very sorry.’ Hanan was lying in the bed, hugging her red bear, asking why her father didn’t visit, and her mother burst out crying, telling her ‘He is waiting for you, he will take care of you, he went to Heaven in the sky, he’s looking down and watching over you.’  

“Hanan died on 6 December. The only memory I have these drawings she gave them to me, I have to photocopy them to share them with her poor mother.” 

The activist added, “The innocent faces and laughter of these children, many of whom are gone far too fast after undergoing cruel chemotherapy, are engraved in my mind. Let me share with you the story of Salma. She was only nine years old. She was telling me she came from a village in Muhammarah. ‘When I became ill, my parents brought me to Ahwaz city’, she said. ‘I was very happy to see the city and the cars and tall buildings, but I am bored – I’ve been here for several weeks. I miss my friends in the village.’ Her parents said, ‘We make a living from farming and have a few cows and goats – we had to sell them to pay for Salma’s treatment, she has leukaemia. Now it’s hard for us even to come to Ahwaz city – the transportation costs are high, Salma was the first beautiful gift of our marriage, we could not imagine losing her…’  

“I sat down beside Salma, and she asked me to give her a few stickers. When I gave them to her, she stuck them on her arms and on the bruises from the needles that punctured her chest and arms, and put the rest on her pale cheeks. I ask her ‘Why did you do that?’ She said, ‘I want to hide the injection bruises from my siblings and show them I’m fine and also cover them when my mother takes videos and pictures of me so that they laugh and be happy when they watch them.’” 

The activist continued, “I got coronavirus and I had to isolate myself for weeks, but I forgot about my suffering and was only thinking about those children who became used to waiting for me to bring them joy and games. During my last visit, Salma’s father and I exchanged phone numbers and I offered for them to stay in our home if they couldn’t manage to commute between village and Ahwaz hospital. I was missing Salma and I called her father – he told me ‘Salma succumbed to the leukemia. We couldn’t save her, she needed a bone marrow transplant.”

The activist continued, “I fell into a deep depression – the number of children infected with various types of cancer is rising shocking, although the hospitals have official orders not to release any figures – but we are seeing it on the ground.” 

Nearly a year ago, on 12 February 2020, Dr Bijan Kikhaei, the director of Sahid Baqai Hospital, said that 90 per cent of the cancer patients seen there cannot afford the cost of treatment, which he said is unreasonably high. 

He announced that nearly 200 Ahwazi children are diagnosed with cancer annually at that one hospital, in addition to another 800 to 1,000 cases of childhood cancer cases across Ahwaz. The real figures may be higher than this as some patients head to hospitals outside the region, in Golestan or elsewhere, for radiotherapy or chemotherapy, while others travel elsewhere in the Middle East or even further afield seeking treatment, depending on their financial capabilities. For nine-tenths of the patients, however, Dr Kikhaei noted, they simply can’t afford treatment in Ahwaz, let alone abroad, with even one session of radiotherapy costing between 100 million to 200 million Rials (around three to six months salary of manual labour), far beyond the means of most Ahwazis subsisting below the poverty threshold. 

A key reason behind the rapidly rising spike in incidents of childhood cancer is the chronic pollution that afflicts Ahwaz. Between the oil and gas fields and refineries belching out thick black smoke around the clock, the desertification resulting from the regime’s massive river-damming and diversion program that has turned much of the once verdant region of farmland into barren desert, and the regime’s use of Ahwaz as a heavy industry centre, with thousands of tons of untreated highly toxic industrial waste jettisoned into the rivers daily, the region is a climate disaster zone. 

This is compounded by depleted uranium dust and other detritus left over from the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s as well as the subsequent Gulf Wars. In June of 2019, the deputy governor of Basra province in Iraq noted a dramatic uptick in cancer there. Located southeast of Baghdad, Basra lies on the west bank of the Shatt al-Arab River, while Ahwaz is on its eastern bank. Geologically related, both Basra and Ahwaz are oil-rich, much as it Kuwait to Basra’s south. 

Earlier, in an interview with Iranian website Khaneh Mellat, published on 3 May 2018, Hedayatollah Khademi, the member of parliament representing Ahwaz, indicated that the air pollution and sandstorms, the heavily polluted rivers, the lingering presence of chemicals still left from the 1980-88 war and the environmentally catastrophic effect of the oil and gas fields, refineries and related petrochemical facilities were known to be the primary main reasons behind the region’s grim and rising rates of cancer, particularly among the Ahwazi children.  

Khademi added that the oil industry’s constant prospecting and construction of new facilities with no thought for the environmental or societal consequences are other reasons behind the rise of these diseases as personnel working on these projects use carcinogenic chemicals, including a liquid called ‘drilling mud’, with particulates of these substances being swept up by the winds and sandstorms in the area and becoming part of the atmospheric pollution inhaled by the people of Ahwaz, leading to abnormally high rates of cancer, as well as respiratory diseases; as usual, the worst affected are the most vulnerable, namely children and the elderly. 

However, while studies have been conducted with the goal of predicting and preventing cancer emergence in Basra, the Iranian regime has utterly refused to disclose any relevant statistic, much less preventative assistance. Worse yet, Basra has not suffered anything like what Ahwaz has been subjected to over the course of decades, in which its very environment has been steadily destroyed as part of criminal genocide, as the authors have previously documented.

What remains of the rivers that sustained generations of fishermen for centuries are now largely lifeless, choked with industrial waste, raw sewage, garbage and untreated wastewater from oil and gas refineries and petrochemical production facilities, as well as sugar refineries constructed on the banks of the rivers, part of the Iranian regime’s sugarcane farming industry, which has been used to justify the ethnic cleansing of large areas in order to plant sugar cane; the growing of sugar crane is water-intensive, using the little remaining river water in the region for irrigation, with the refineries built on the riverbanks using more water in the refining process, ejecting the wastewater together with the chemicals used back into the water and further polluting the already heavily polluted water supply. Hospitals also dump medical waste into the rivers, with environmental protection criteria simply disregarded.  

Airborne pollution from the oil and gas refineries often drifts for some distance before settling, not only creating choking clouds of black smoke but poisoning the ecosystem. The increasing desertification means that the sand in the desert areas becomes mixed with oil and gas particulates from the refineries, with the loss of vegetation leading to toxic sandstorms which in turn have led to widespread increases in respiratory diseases, breathing problems and cancers. 

In addition, there’s been a rapidly increasing rise in recent years in patients contracting allergies compared to the previously recorded figures due to the worsening environmental pollution impacting air, water and soil.

Mohammad Jawad Ashrafi, the Director-General of Environmental Protection for Ahwaz, has stated that “The wastewater treatment situation of 13 hospitals in the north of Ahwaz  is unsuitable,” saying that “Among this group, toxic wastewater from 6 hospitals flows into rivers and water resources of the region.”

Ashrafi condemned the inefficiency of the hospital sewage treatment system in Ahwaz, saying: “The Hazrat Zainab hospitals of Ma’shor (Mahshahr) and Aanbar (Lali) do not have a wastewater treatment plant, the same applies to the defective sewage treatment plant in Golestan and Monfared Neyaki (Army 578) and Sinai hospitals in Ahwaz, as well as to the Imam Reza hospital in Amidia (Omidieya), which have been inactive for more than a year. As a result, wastewater flows into the river in an untreated and unsanitary manner.”

Referring to the deplorable conditions at 59 hospitals in the north of Ahwaz, Mohammad Jawad Ashrafi, noted: “In general, the condition of the sewage treatment system in 13 hospitals is inappropriate.”

The Iranian official also said, “The crisis of polluted water flowing into rivers has caused a major crisis in Ahwaz. About 40 percent of the sewage enters directly from the five main outlets to Karun River, causing many environmental and social problems.”

While the head of Ahwaz Health Centre, Mahdi Husseinizadeh, acknowledged “The discharge of municipal sewage and agricultural drainage poses a threat to citizens’ health,” noting that “more than 70% of Ahwaz sewage enters Karun River,” he did not mention the effects of discharging infectious sewage from hospitals into rivers. 

Husseinizadeh also added: “Among 59 hospitals in Ahwaz, 39 are managed by Ahwaz Jondishapur University of Medical Sciences, four by Abadan University of Medical Sciences, seven by Dezful University of Medical Sciences, four by Shushtar and five are managed by Behbahan University of Medical Sciences.”

A recent statement by Farhad Safdari, the director of Environmental and Occupational Health at Ahwaz Health Centre further confirmed the severe pollution problem, with Safdari noting, “The sewage water flows from 23 points into Karoon River in Ahwaz,” adding that it had earlier been planned that “by 2017 ‘Ahwaz ABFA’ would develop five critical channels, through which about 40% of Ahwaz’s wastewater would enter the Karoon river.”

Mohammed Reza Izadi, a member of Ahwaz City Council, also revealed in an interview with a local news website in Ahwaz around 18 months ago that he had obtained confidential official documents from the Ahwaz Water and Sewage company(ABFA)’s archive showing that local health centres had diagnosed citizens with infectious diseases, including Hepatitis Type A and intestinal diseases, during recent floods there, with medics citing the dilapidated and largely broken down sewage system in the area and the outlets which eject untreated raw sewage into the region’s rivers as primary reasons for the floodwaters becoming polluted with sewage which spread these infections across many Ahwazi areas. 

The official told the news site that when he had announced that the citizens from 13 areas of Ahwaz had contracted Hepatitis A due to the polluted water, the governor threatened him, ordering him not to leak such reports.  

In spring of 2020, news of polluted water causing cholera in Ahwaz emerged, but were again denied by the governor, who claimed that the water supply is monitored by health agencies on a daily basis, urging locals not to pay heed to such rumours. These claims caused widespread anger amongst Ahwazis who flooded social media with videos showing the brackish, foul and undrinkable tap water supplied to their homes which is supposedly monitored by the regime’s health agencies. Such videos are common in Ahwaz where seasonal flooding and water-borne diseases of this nature, which were once unknown in the region which was known for centuries for its crystal-clear rivers and agricultural lands, are increasingly the norm, along with summers plagued by severe water shortages and choking sand storms. Following the most recent seasonal floods which destroyed homes and washed away livestock and even some vehicles, many Ahwazis uploaded videos showing foul sewage water a few feet deep, with health officials in Ahwaz city warning of the danger of gastrointestinal diseases as a result of the pollution of the lands and rivers.  

At the same time, health officials in the province announced that sewage, polluted water and reused water are one of the causes of the spread of infectious diseases. This coincided with another outbreak of cholera, intestinal diseases, skin diseases and diarrhoea, raising concerns among the public about a possibly uncontrollable epidemic of such diseases, particularly in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

It should be noted that while the problem is worsening, especially in light of the regime’s catastrophic policies, it is not new, with the regime’s failure to repair or upgrade the grossly inadequate and dilapidated decades-old sewage system, much of which is still damaged as a result of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, leading to regular breakdowns and sewage floods. In a region that houses over 95 per cent of the oil and gas resources claimed by Iran, which should be the wealthiest in the country, the indigenous people are living in medieval squalor while the regime makes billions annually from their resources. Every autumn and winter, with the onset of rainfall, the streets of Ahwaz become foul-smelling pools impassable due to the overflow of municipal sewage and the lack of any surface water drainage network. All of these features make this a dreadful, predictable annual event in Ahwaz. 

The current grim economic situation, high unemployment rates and widespread subsistence-level poverty, meanwhile, means that the region’s indigenous Ahwazi people, already suffering as a result of decades of repression, as well as institutional racism, are often unable to afford basic medical treatment, meaning that they will only go to the doctor’ when pain or physical difficulty become too debilitating to ignore; as a result, cancer often remains undiagnosed until it has spread throughout their system and is effectively incurable.  

The combination of all these factors means that Ahwazis, more particularly Ahwazi children, suffer from abnormally high rates of cancer and other diseases with little or no hope of recovery. It is admittedly a historical truth that the world at large suffers from what may be charitably called inertia when it comes to protecting human rights. It takes a significant amount of time for governments and civil societies to rise up and expend the necessary resources to address human rights abuses. But these children do not have that time. 

Thanks to the despicable regime, Hanan and Salma, two little girls never had even the ghost of a chance to fight the unspeakable horror of childhood cancer. Without access to treatments that could have saved them – or could still save other young children wasting away as this is written – the regime’s callousness and ruthlessly suppressive anti-Ahwazi policies have sentenced them to death, a horrifying and excruciating agony. And so, while nations tend to act only in pursuit of their perceived best interests, this is not one of those times. These children need serious medical help now, and that help is being prevented by the Iranian regime. If human rights mean anything, if basic human empathy still exists, this cannot be allowed to continue.

Rahim Hamid is an Ahwazi author, freelance journalist and human rights advocate. He tweets under @Samireza42.

Aaron Eitan Meyer is an attorney admitted to practice in New York State and before the United State Supreme Court, and a researcher and analyst. He has written extensively on lawfare, international humanitarian, and human rights law. He tweets under @Aaronemeyer.

Article first published on Dur-untash Studies Center.

Iranian regime’s cultural vandalism and deliberate targeting of historical antiquities is no different to that of ISIS or the Taliban. 

According to local sources in Ahwaz, Iranian authorities recently demolished an irreplaceable 5,000-year-old historical site in the city of Ramez, north of Ahwaz (Khuzestan) on 30 December 2020. The sources noted that the ‘Jobji’ historical site, which dates back to the Elamite era (3500 BC – 500 BC), was completely destroyed by bulldozers.

Iranian sources confirmed that, “The Elamite historical site was discovered in 2007 during work on the water supply canal project, with the site being registered on the list of national monuments in Iran.” Ahwazi history researchers stated that two Elamite women were buried at the site, along with hundreds of handcrafted items made of gold, bronze and pottery dating back to 3,000 BC. 

Director-General of Cultural Heritage, Handicrafts and Tourism in Khuzestan, Hikmatallah Mousavi, told the ILNA news agency, “The construction of the new road destroyed the historical monument in Jobji,” adding “There are several mines and sand production companies in this area where trucks pass through the village of Jobji on the way to work, so the villagers protested against the noise from these heavy vehicles, with a new road planned to go around the village. As a result, the historical monument was destroyed without any coordination with the heritage institution in Ramez.” [Ref: ILNA News Agency]

In September 2019, the head of the Iranian Archaeological Research Institute, Ruhollah Shirazi, said: “The excavation work has resumed at the Jobji site in Ramez,” adding that “The Khuzestan Water and Electricity Corporation will pay a certain sum to the Archaeological Research Institute for excavation, but this money has not yet been paid.” [Ref: IRNA News Agency]

Since contemporary archaeologists first started exploring the area, located in Ramez county in northeastern Ahwaz (Khuzestan) in 1997, they’ve recovered Elamite-era gold and bronze artefacts dating back to 600-700 BC, as well as even older Elamite historical relics dating back to 3000 BC. With the help of the Cultural Heritage Institute, they also discovered several ancient coffins in this area in July 2019. 

Despite this priceless ancient cultural heritage, Iranian regime institutions have destroyed countless irreplaceable artefacts; in 2018, state oil and gas companies also destroyed ‘Tel Bermi’, the remains of a village dating back to 4000 BC, predating even the Elamite period, also in Ramez county. [Ref: Eskan News]

Many have noted that the Iranian regime’s cultural vandalism and deliberate targeting of historical antiquities is no different to that of ISIS or the Taliban. 

There is no doubt that the Iranian regime has a long history of cultural vandalism of this nature in Ahwaz, destroying and demolishing numerous historical sites, some of which date back millennia. Officials of the regime’s Cultural Heritage Organisation and officials look on, doing nothing to stop the destruction of irreplaceable historical artefacts and heritage sites. 

Ahwazi archaeologists and historians are determined to fight the threat of destruction against their heritage and cultural artefacts. In an interview with DUSC, Sheikh Tarmida, a Mandaean cleric, said, “The rich archaeological and architectural heritage of Ahwaz is suffering from destruction, deterioration and neglect.” He condemned the Iranian authorities for its devastating assault on the region’s heritage, pointing out that it is not a new development but part of a consistent policy by the regime, saying, “They have destroyed and demolished the places of worship and the Mandaeans’ historical and heritage relics in Ahwaz since 1979.” 

Tarmida emphasised, “During the Ahmadinejad government, the Iranian authorities destroyed an old bridge in the city of Tester in Ahwaz,” adding, “The Iranian authorities have confiscated all Mandaeans’ lands on the edge of the bridge and prevented them from praying.” 

In addition to the destruction of many archaeological sites dating back thousands of years, environmental changes such as desertification and floods due to the Iranian regime’s policies have also had a devastating effect on historical sites and artefacts in Ahwaz. Despite the regime’s claims to protect the historical sites and heritage in the region, Ahwazi scholars and researchers believe that the Iranian regime’s policy is not consistent with any sort of heritage preservation or environmental preservation, whether in historic urban centres, rural environments, or natural landscapes. 

Another Ahwazi researcher told DUSC, “The Iranian authorities have not only committed the destruction, smuggling and theft of Ahwazi heritage and artefacts, but some Iranian merchants have also been involved in these shameful and illegal activities on a racist basis, as well as collecting money through the theft of historical antiquities.”

The Iranian government has recently destroyed many historic Elamite, Islamic and contemporary sites across Ahwaz such as castles, palaces. Ancient homes, places of worship, bridges, markets, cemeteries and other manmade features. 

The construction of a sugar refinery, part of the regime’s loss-making sugar-refinery project in the region, in Ziggurat, Susa, threatens one of the oldest historical monuments in Ahwaz and globally. The Ziggurat, which dates back more than 3,300 years, is in danger of being destroyed by the Iranian authorities, motivating UNESCO to call on Iran’s regime to provide details about the dangers to the historic site. The Deputy Minister of Cultural Heritage in Iran said, “UNESCO has submitted a request regarding the threat of the Ziggurat in Susa,” stating that “we are ready to move the sugar factory to another place so that we can formally respond to UNESCO.” [Ref: Hamshahri Online]

Other irreplaceable Elamite antiquities and historical sites that the Iranian regime demolished in Ahwaz include “a historical site in Zidan, the inscription of Kharj Island in Abu Shahr, the inscription of the Apadana Palace in Susa, the destruction of the Elamite site of Saba Gata in Khalafia in 2008, Jareh Dam in Ramez, Lian yard in Abu Shahr, and Tell Bagara in Arjan.” 

The Elamite Bagara hill, a monument dating back 5,000 years, which was located one kilometre from the village of Qalat Al-Sayed in Arjan (Behbahan), was registered by the regime as being among the country’s historical monuments in 2007. Despite this, Iranian authorities deliberately destroyed the monument without concern for the historical heritage of Ahwaz.

The regime’s deliberate sabotage of historical monuments in Ahwaz includes Islamic monuments, including the historic Islamic castle in Dayer, which was registered as a national monument in 2001, the historic Asaluyah Mosque, which was also registered as a national monument in 2006, as well as numbers of other Islamic monuments in the cities of Tester, Susa, Quneitra (Dezful), and Bastak in Ahwaz. [Ref: ISNA News Agency]

Historical monuments from Ahwaz’ contemporary history, such as palaces, houses and markets, have also been deliberately vandalised by the Iranian regime with the aim of destroying Ahwazi cultural heritage. Reports indicate that Ahwazi monuments dating back to the Masha’a’i, al-Ka’abi and al-Qawasim eras have been completely destroyed.

The hauntingly beautiful palaces at Ajam, the palace of Sheikh Abdul-Hamid bin Khazal in the city of Ahwaz, and the palace of the Filiyeh of Sheikh Khazal, the last monarch of Ahwaz, were all very deliberately destroyed by the Iranian regime. The Filiyeh Palace, built in 1917 in the city of Muhammarah near the Shatt al-Arab River, was registered on the National Monuments List in 2000; ten years later, regime authorities tore it down. The Iranian regime also demolished the Dar Khowin oil cinema, which was built about 109 years ago.

The Iranian regime also recently demolished the stunning Bachari historical house in Abadan, which dates back to Sheikh Khazal’s era prior to the occupation of Ahwaz in 1925. This house was registered as a national monument in 2003.

These are not isolated incidents, with the Iranian regime demolishing the gorgeous Kazim and Qaleh Khan houses built using long-forgotten traditional construction methods in Bastak. During a visit to Bastak, the governor of Hormuzgan stressed the need to preserve and protect the city’s traditional architecture, and historical and ancient places of this city; despite this, those which have not yet been razed are unlikely to remain much longer. It is worth noting that the Iranian authorities have also destroyed most of the historical monuments in Jemberoun, Lenja and other areas in southern Ahwaz. [Ref: IRIB News]

Irina Tsukerman, American international lawyer, in an interview with DUSC, said, “Demolishing historical sites constitutes an attempt to engage in cultural genocide and erasure of distinct cultural identities and violates both the cultural rights of the distinct groups and violation of international norms.” She added that UNESCO has engaged in efforts to protect historical heritage sites from destruction. For instance, the Hague Convention of 1907 prohibits the destruction of cultural heritage and requires that parties be equipped to take “all necessary steps” for the “protection of buildings dedicated to religion, art, science, or charitable purposes, historical monuments, hospitals, etc.” 

Tsukerman noted that many consider the destruction of cultural heritage sites to be a war crime. She added that the Rome Statute offers protection against the destruction of cultural heritage, an issue that has been debated and discussed since at least ancient Rome, stating: “The Rome Statute, of the International Criminal Court, classifies intentional destruction of cultural property as a war crime.” She also noted that the 1954 Hague Convention on the Protection of Cultural Property during Armed Conflict and its First Protocol codify protection of cultural property in wartime after WWII. 

Tsukerman emphasised that cultural property is also treated as private property and is prohibited from being seized, destroyed, or being wilfully damaged, adding, “The UN Special Rapporteur on Cultural Rights, Karima Bennoune, has testified that destruction of cultural heritage is an attack on people and their fundamental rights, essentially equating sacred places and other cultural heritage sites as an expression of a people’s unique identity and therefore a human right.”

Tsukerman pointed out that “Iran and other states that engage in wilful demolition of historic heritage are seeking to deny non-Persian peoples and nations such as Ahwazi Arabs a sense of unique and distinct identity that has emerged over thousands of years and to create a false perception of imaginary monolithic culture in line with the ideology of ethnocentrisms and the Islamic Republic’s official doctrine.” She added that ethnocentrists such as the IRI “deny the existence of distinct non-Persian cultures which have contributed to the rich fabric of interactions and influence the general culture in the region; they also deny the influence of Arab culture over the region and claim that the Persian culture in the region is distinct from the various ethnic influences and interaction between various khanates, dynasties, and tribes.”

The American lawyer stressed that “international human rights NGOs and community should stop following Iranian propaganda and take time to educate themselves about the culture of the region in order to protect precious heritage sites from destruction.” She said that “UNESCO should take measures to call out Iran for its barbaric practices that make the IRI more similar to ISIS and the Taliban than to the ancient civilisations for which it is falsely taking credit. Therefore, in that regard, the regime should be treated exactly like these terrorist organisations.” She added, “Iran should be sanctioned for its destruction of history, its claims of history should be subject to strict scrutiny in all cultural and educational institutions around the world, its official experts should be denied certifications, and it should be expelled from all international cultural bodies.” 

Conclusion

The grotesque distortion of history by Iran’s regime contributes to the false perception of history and reality in the Middle East and as a result, contributes to misguided policies which only perpetuate human rights abuses in the region. Iran is destroying historical monuments and arresting any activist who opposes these policies of sabotage and vandalism, as many historians and activists specialising in the fields of history and heritage were arrested. According to Ahwazi sources, the Iranian authorities have detained dozens of activists in various areas in Ahwaz on charges of promoting teachings against the Iranian regime’s policy. This continuing barbaric, ISIS-style policy of destroying historical monuments without any international deterrence causes the regime to accelerate the destruction of remains of the historical monuments in Ahwaz, with the aim of destroying Ahwazi heritage and identity and robbing the people and the world of heritage stretching back for millennia.

Article first published on Dur-Untash Studies Center.

Kamil Alboshoka is an Ahwazi researcher and international law specialist. He tweets under @KAlboshoka.

Sources close to the former vice president of the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahwaz Mr. Alaswad, who bears Swedish citizenship, reiterated that the latter was turned in to the Iranian intelligence within the framework of what the sources called ‘a fishy deal’ between the Iranian regime and Turkey.

The sources said that the Ahwazi leader entered Turkey on October 9 via a Swedish passport.

He had been abducted there over the past weeks amid a tight blackout by the Turkish authorities.

The sources also said the authorities in Istanbul ignored questions from the family and all messages and contacts from the Swedish authorities regarding his fate over the past 25 days. Then reports of handing him over to the Iranian regime and deporting him via Turkish borders to Iran have emerged.

The IRGC-affiliated newspaper Rahyab News confirmed the reports of the Turkish authorities’ handover of the Ahwazi leader, saying that he was moved to Iran via West Azerbaijan crossing as part of an intelligence operation.

Ahwazi and Arab activists condemned the Turkish involvement in handing over Mr. Alaswad to Iran, describing what happened as a kidnapping of a Swedish national and an Ahwazi politician.

They said that the handover came as part of a deal between the Iranian regime intelligence and the Turks.

Observers and rights activists warned that Mr. Alaswad will likely be subjected to a substantial physical torture, which could amount to execution by the authorities in Iran.

The activists called on the Swedish authorities and the international community, represented in its humanitarian and rights bodies, to take the necessary measures as fast as possible and to hold accountable those involved in the operation of kidnapping Mr. Alaswad and handing him over to Iran.

It is worth noting that the Ahwazi leader is a Swedish resident living in Stockholm since 2006. Before losing communication with him in Istanbul on October 9, he was the president of the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahwaz.

Many Ahwazi activists believe that the regime’s policy of dam-building and river diversion is part of a longstanding effort to make the area uninhabitable for the indigenous people…

Problems related to water resources have become one of the most significant economic and social challenges facing the people of Ahwaz. Despite the Ahwaz region being richly blessed with bounteous water resources, including three major rivers as well as wetlands, water shortages continue to worsen, with even groundwater levels being greatly reduced due to the devastating policies of the Iranian authorities. This is exacerbated by climate change, which poses an additional burden on the availability and accessibility of water in Ahwaz, but climate change alone could not inflict the horrendous damage caused by the regime’s actions, particularly by its massive river-damming and diversion programmes, which have seen the regime divert much of the water supply from the three main rivers to other regions of Iran. The regime greatly accelerated these projects since 2006, particularly on the Karoon river, leading to unprecedented and rapidly growing water shortages, drought and desertification in the once verdant region.

The damming and diversion programme is one of the most critical issues directly impacting Ahwazi citizens, whose lives, like those of all peoples, are reliant on the availability of clean water.

Under international law, nations are forbidden from restricting the supply of water to citizens in any way that might adversely affect their health, wellbeing and economic stability; despite flying in the face of this internationally accepted norm and restricting Ahwazis’ water supply to a degree that forces many of the indigenous peoples to move to other areas simply for survival, the Iranian regime’s dam-building and river diversion programme has never been censured.

It is imperative, therefore, that this programme and the ongoing construction of dams must be subject to the rules of international law, so this article will focus on some of the violations already perpetrated by Iranian authorities through this devastating and environmentally ruinous programme in Ahwaz. 

Public anger is growing rapidly amongst Ahwazis over the Iranian regime authorities’ theft of their resources. In the latest revelations, it’s been revealed that the regime is planning to secretly divert more water from Ahwaz to ethnically Persian cities under the implausible pretext that sufficient water will be left for the indigenous Ahwazi people in the reservoirs behind the regime-built dams.

Since the 1950s, successive Iranian regimes have built dams and diverted rivers towards ethnically Persian regions of Iran, which have created a severe and worsening environmental crisis in Ahwaz, with this catastrophic situation worsening further under the current regime which has expanded the dam-building and river-diversion programme.  This policy has been implemented not merely to benefit ethnically Persian areas of Iran, but to change the demographic composition of Ahwaz by illegally depopulating its indigenous Ahwazi population so that the land and its resources can be transferred to ethnic Persian and other favoured groups, ensuring that Tehran has full ownership of the resources there.

The latest revelations came in a leaked news report published on Wednesday, 28 October regarding a meeting between the CEO of the Water and Energy Company and governing officials in the Yazd province in central Iran, during which the utilities head instructed the officials that there should be a media ban on any reports about diverting more water to Yazd to avoid the public outcry that happened following revelations of similar illegal diversions of the region’s water supply to Isfahan.

The chairman of the regime’s energy authority further claimed that the state-run company has not yet completed its study into the logistics of transferring water to Yazd, citing this as another reason why media should not be informed about the matter. 

The utilities head also quoted a local official from Yazd as stating that while the Ahwaz region has a problem with Isfahan, there are no similar problems with Yazd. Therefore, he said, unfavourable media coverage could be problematic in stopping the planned diversion of water to Yazd.

In the footage from the meeting, he said, “I urge everyone to ensure that all decisions taken at this meeting should not be published in media, and should remain secret until we can complete the water transfer safely and comfortably. We will also continue to follow the work of studies and financing of the project [regarding transferring water to Yazd]. We will also try to get a water transfer permit from the Environment Organisation as soon as possible.”

The regime’s plan to transfer more water from Ahwaz, which is already suffering from chronic shortages due to the regime’s large-scale diversion of its rivers to other areas is another flagrant violation of international law, effectively victimising an occupied minority population in order to benefit the occupier and its favoured ethnic groups.

The regime’s efforts to conceal these illegal and immoral actions should be publicised and broadcast globally in order to show the regime that it can no longer act with impunity and try to hide its crimes against the indigenous Ahwazi people behind media bans.

Amongst the ways in which the dam-building and river diversion programme has adversely affected the indigenous Ahwazi people and the regional ecosystem are: increasing poverty, unemployment and instability through forcing mass migration, essentially using water deprivation as a tool of demographic change;  spreading disease and illness through leaving the people of Ahwaz with only filthy, untreated water to drink and use domestically; massively polluting the remaining river waters and marshlands; devastating the ecosystem by destroying the habitat of native species of birds, fish and animals, leading to mass species migration or imminent extinction. This article will clearly explain the nature of each of these violations and how to address these policies that threaten the lives of an entire people in Ahwaz.

The construction of dams, particularly on the largest main rivers in Ahwaz – the Karoon and Dez – also has a major impact in neighbouring Iraq, particularly on the quality of drinking water and on agriculture, specifically in the adjacent provinces of Basra and Maysan, as well as having a severe impact on the ecosystem in the Arabian Gulf.

International treaties should theoretically prevent Iran from building dams capable of having such a damaging effect on the environment and local populations.  While international law states that nations which share borders and water supplies should hold consultations beforehand on such major initiatives and should reach agreement on issues such as the quality of dam construction, the materials used, and how this will affect water availability and quality, as well as reaching consensus on their shared ‘absolute sovereignty’ over the water resources,  these protections do not apply to the indigenous people in affected regions when the rivers in question, such as the Jarahi and Karkheh, also in Ahwaz, are controlled by the regime governing their own nation; Iran takes full advantage of this lack of any oversight to dam these rivers and divert their waters to a massive extent that further threatens the already precarious lives and wellbeing of the indigenous Ahwazi people and inflicts additional devastation on the regional flora and fauna and the ecosystem.  Meanwhile, the restrictions on water flowing into the Gulf and the pollution of the remaining waters causes massive environmental damage not only in Ahwaz but in all the Gulf nations. 

To make this article more accessible for readers and followers, the primary focus will be on some of the major problems caused by the construction of dams and diversion of rivers in Ahwaz.

It is hoped that focusing on these violations will increase the awareness of the magnitude of the violation of international law inflicted through the regime’s river-damming and diversion programme in Ahwaz and the level of risk these dams cause to the lives of Ahwazi citizens and to the ecosystem. Later, we’ll analyse how these waters could be used in a positive way that would respect citizens’ right to life and rehabilitate the Ahwazi environment.  

Introduction

International law plays an important role in resolving domestic and foreign disputes, with the growing tensions over water resources falling into both categories,  the conflict over water has become both an internal and regional issue between Iran and Iraq, with disputes over the Karoon in particular stoking regional tensions; meanwhile, although the dams themselves restricting that and other rivers in Ahwaz are solely within Iran’s borders, the regime’s actions have had a devastating impact on the ecosystem of the region. Given all these factors, the crisis over the regime’s river diversion and dam-building programme is considered one of the most serious violations of international law not only threatening Ahwazis’ future in their historic lands due to the danger posed to the indigenous people, flora and fauna and to the fishing and agriculture that are the historic occupations of the Ahwazi people, but to the wider region.  

As indicated above, provisions in international law and international agreements can play a crucial role in restricting dams and limiting their impact on human life and the environment. According to the principles of international law, it is prohibited for a nation housing the headwater or origin of a river to divert its waters at the expense of nations downstream, with no country, region, state or canton permitted to change the natural conditions of its territory at the expense of its neighbour. According to the provisions of international law, the country of origin can use the right of veto against any plan that might harm it. Such a government has the right to oppose any change in the situation of the river. [¹]

Access to water in Ahwaz has become one of the most important and central issues in the lives of Ahwazis; by building dams upstream, Iranian authorities have limited and severely reduced the availability of freshwater for the Ahwazi people, as well as severely polluting the remaining water, leaving citizens facing many serious problems linked to deprivation such as unemployment, poverty, displacement and diseases. [²]

An estimated 3 million people in the Ahwaz region (a number that would only include the population of Ahwaz city, Abadan and Muhammarah) lack access to safe drinking water in their homes. [³] According to international law, this is unquestionably illegal since these dams have deprived citizens of their natural rights to life, health and wellbeing. International law also links the miserable situation in Ahwaz to the dams that have caused disaster for citizens.

To address the ‘global water challenges’, the United Nations declared 2005-2015 the ‘International Decade for Action’, and “Water for Life”. These aspirations were restated in the 2015 Sustainable Development Goals, with the objective of ensuring that everyone has access to water and sanitation. More specifically, in 2010, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) adopted Resolution 64/292 confirming the human right to water and sanitation.

Freshwater resources in Ahwaz

Freshwater resources occupy a prominent position alongside other natural resources such as oil, gas and minerals in making Ahwaz an important region for the rulers in Tehran.  While the whole area of Ahwaz has access to freshwater resources and a number of rivers, as well as coastal marshlands, they’re particularly concentrated in the northern part of the region, known as Khuzestan in Farsi, with Ahwaz being characterised by its fertile lands, extensive cultivation and extensive water supplies.

Most of the area’s water resources are from conventional sources such as the Karoon, Jarahi and Karkheh rivers, which feed the marshlands in areas like Hor Al-Azim, Falahiyeh, Hor Susa (Bamdej Wetland) and Tamimiyah (Hendijan), with plentiful winter rainfall representing another conventional or natural water resources in the region. While unconventional, manmade water resources such as desalination plants are also present, these have been limited in Ahwaz given the presence of rivers there.

Ahwazi rivers have played a central role in the regional economy and ecosystem, with the 950-kilometre Karoon being the largest river in Iran and the only navigable one large enough to carry oceangoing vessels which has borders with international waters across the Shatt al-Arab waterway.

The Karoon runs from narrow high valleys at its head before forking into two primary branches downstream as it nears the delta; one of these, the ‘Salij’ (or ‘Bahmanshir’ in Farsi), empties directly into the Arabian Gulf, while the other, the extension of the Karoon, flows into the Shatt al-Arab waterway, connecting with the Arabian Gulf. The waters of the Karoon have enabled generations of Ahwazis to make their living as farmers and fishermen, with the region renowned for its agriculture and livestock, as well as for its rich variety of fish and wildlife. The second largest regional river, the Karkheh, enters the plains region between Hamidiyeh and Khafajiyeh after crossing Susa, from where it empties into the Hor Al-Azim. The river is currently cut off and rerouted at the site of the Karkheh Dam and hydro-power plant in Iran.

The third largest river, the Jarahi, divides into two branches, one of which, the Falahiyeh river, joins the Karoon before emptying into the Hor Falahiyeh marshlands, while the other, empties into the Arabian Gulf through Khor Musa.

The Dez River, the fourth largest river in Ahwaz, begins near Tester (Shushtar) before entering the Shatit tributary which flows into the Karoon. The Dez Dam is located on this river. The Zohreh or Hendijan river, with an approximate length of about 490 km, is the fifth largest river, also located in the north of Ahwaz.

After flowing through the city of Arjan (Behbahan), the Zohreh joins the Kheir Abad river; 36 km to the southwest of Tamimiyah  (Hendijan),  it flows into the Arabian Gulf. There are four other rivers in Bushehr in South Ahwaz, namely the Dalki, Hilla, Shapor and Mand. All these rivers empty into the Arabian Gulf. There are also smaller rivers in Jambaron which also empty into the Arabian Gulf such as the Minab, Kal, Shomil, Jalabi, Jagin, Mehran and Jask. However, all these rivers are now greatly diminished by Iranian dam projects which have led to massive suffering among the Ahwazi people, as well as causing an environmental catastrophe in the once verdant region.

Dams and Disputes

According to Iranian statistics, there are currently 72 dams in Ahwaz (including Khuzestan, Bushehr and Hormuzgan), with Iranian authorities seeking to build more dams to divert the waters to other regions. According to official reports, more than 40 dams and tunnels have been built on the Karoon, Karkheh and Jarahi rivers in Ahwaz to date, with 25 of these constructed on the Karoon, seven on the Karkheh, and eight on the Jarahi. A further 19 dams are planned for the Karoon, 12 for the Karkheh, and five on the Jarahi, while studies are underway into another 140 dams.

Iranian authorities, mostly working under the supervision of the regime’s infamous Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), also constructed several dams in the Abu-Shahr area in Ahwaz, effectively cutting the rivers off downstream and preventing the flow of water essential for drinking water and domestic use as well as for agriculture, fishing and for the regional ecosystem and marshlands of the Arabian Gulf.

Speaking about the regime’s plans for the dams’ project, Ali Mohammadi, CEO of Bushehr Regional Water Company, said: “There are currently 15 large and small dams in this province with a number of other dams under construction or under study, and these dams will play an important role in controlling water before it reaches the Gulf.”

Mohammadi noted that “The water stored at Rais Ali Dilavari Dam, as the largest dam at Bushehr, has increased by 47% compared to previous years.”

Iranian authorities have also reported plans for the construction of a number of dams in Hormuzgan province for electricity and other industries. Iran has revealed that seven large dams have been built in the province, all of which have a significant negative impact on agriculture and fishing, as well as on the ecosystem of marshlands at the mouth of the Arabian Gulf.

Crisis and impact

Given the critical importance of water to every aspect of life and the natural environment, the challenges facing Ahwaz in this context are among the most crucial issues to be analysed in determining the region’s future. Although a number of other challenges face the freshwater supply in Ahwaz, including increasing urban demand, changing land-use patterns and environmental requirements, along with the increasingly climate change occurs with severe and diverse impacts, but Iranian dams represent the most prominent challenge that threaten the Ahwazi presence and pose the greatest threat to Ahwazi water security. Therefore, water scarcity and the threat of Ahwazi water security due to the construction of dams by Iran are increasingly fuelling conflict inside Ahwaz and even with neighbouring countries.

The growing water shortage in Ahwaz and other environmental challenges caused by the construction of dams have recently reached a crisis point. Water scarcity and air pollution exacerbated by the desertification and pollution caused by the river-damming and diversion  programme not only caused social, political and security problems inside Ahwaz, but has also led to tensions between Iran and neighbouring states due to Iran’s policy causing water shortages and pollution in Hor Al-Azim and the Shatt al-Arab waterway, which has also affected the economy and wellbeing of Iraqi citizens in Basra and Maysan.

Among the other factors causing horrendous problems for Ahwazi citizens as a result of the regime’s damming and diversion of rivers in the region are downstream salinity in the remaining river waters, along with increasing desertification, pollution and flooding in the winter season when heavy rains mean the regime routinely opens the dams to relieve pressure, diverting the floodwaters away from its lucrative oil and gas facilities and refineries around the coastal deltas towards Ahwazi farmlands, towns and villages.

The regime’s habitual endemic corruption mean that the dams have been built and the rivers diverted with little planning and few safeguards or protection often using substandard materials and with inadequate infrastructure provision. The diverted waters are transported via a massive network of pipes to ethnically Persian areas of Iran, leaving Ahwazis struggling to survive on the vastly reduced available water supply. For one example, the salinity levels in the Karoon River rose sharply after the IRGC ordered the Gotwand Dam to be constructed on land close to salt beds, despite warnings of the disastrous potential impact, which proved correct.

The high heightened salinity levels in the groundwater and rivers resulting from this decision have done incalculable damage to agriculture in the region, with the land often left barren and even livestock unable to drink the water. Although there has been growing recognition by some figures in the Iranian regime of the seriousness of the problem, this is too little too late, with the regime unable to reverse the trend and even continuing to build dams inflicting similar devastation on the population and environment.

These dams and the diversion of the rivers’ waters are now the largest obstacle to economic development for many Ahwazi citizens who need the Karoon’s water for agricultural irrigation and for maintaining livestock, as well as for domestic use.

As another example of the devastation unleased by the dams, environmental officials announced in 2015 that the construction of the Gotwand Dam had contributed to the deaths of 400,000 palm trees in the county of Abadan in Ahwaz due to the resulting huge increase in the salinity of the Karoon river, which severely impacted agriculture and the local economy in northern Ahwaz which had produced the vast majority of exported Iranian dates.

As explained, the water shortage crisis, desertification, pollution and other severe problems caused by the regime’s damming and river diversion in the region not only threatens the wellbeing and livelihoods of the indigenous Ahwazi population but also has a devastating effect on the natural environment and ecosystem.

It is no exaggeration to say that this project has left Ahwazi citizens facing the most serious threat to their existence to date, one which could end their presence in their homeland; this is clearly a crime against humanity and a violation of international law.

Increasing diseases

As explained above, the pollution caused by the river damming and diversion programme, especially in combination with the regime’s concentration of heavy industry and oil and gas facilities and refineries in the region and its indifference to the indigenous Ahwazi population, has led to widespread contamination of drinking water and water for domestic use, leading to an increase in associated diseases including skin diseases, cancer and respiratory diseases.  

Much of the drinking water now delivered to homes in Ahwazi cities is untreated, foul-smelling and brown in colour, containing bacteria and viruses that have resulted in widespread disease. While the deterioration of water resources in Ahwaz has been a continuous problem for decades, it has become a particularly grave crisis since 2006, when dozens of dams were built to transport water to Persian cities in Iran. In 2019, at least 40,000 people were hospitalised in Ahwazi cities (12,000 in Ahwaz city alone) due to symptoms identified as being directly related to water quality.

In the last two decades, following the deterioration of environmental conditions in Ahwaz, doctors have warned of a steep increase in cardiovascular disease and cancer. Dr Shahram Ebrahimi, a consultant oncologist at the Ahwaz Health Centre, revealed that out of more than 100 known types of cancer identified, 52 varieties are commonly seen in Ahwaz, with the number of deaths from cancer alone being greater than those resulting from AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

The BBC revealed the reason for the lack of statistics on the high level of fatalities in Ahwaz in an unusually forthright report in which it stated that “except for some other comments, no more information can be found about the significant growth of cancer in Ahwaz. The reason for this is the ban on the publication of any statistics about cardiovascular disease, cancer and other diseases related to the current environmental crisis in Ahwaz.” Mohammad Alawi, the head of the Khuzestan Health Centre, also reported an increase in bowel diseases in Ahwaz due to contaminated drinking water in the region.

Migration

As well as denying thousands of Ahwazi people of the clean water essential for daily life, the construction of dams in Ahwaz has also displaced thousands of indigenous Ahwazi people who previously lived in the dam basin areas. For the Iranian regime, this is only the beginning, with a recent report on the Iranian dam project showing plans to build 40 additional dams on the Ahwazi rivers and water basins, 33 of which will be completed by 2030. If work continues according to the regime schedule, it will cause the mass migration of many Ahwazis who live in areas where dams are planned or who depend on agriculture, fishing or livestock farming for their livelihood.

Another side-effect of the regime’s programmes of damming and river diversion is rapidly worsening sandstorms; although these have always affected the region to a degree due to its location and low humidity levels, the increased desertification now affecting much of Ahwaz, including the once-vast former wetlands areas, coupled with climate change and pollution mean that means that they are now far heavier and last for longer, with a smog of polluted wind-blown sand regularly blanketing Ahwaz city and the region. 

The Deputy Head of the Iranian Environment Organisation, Ali Mohammad Shaeri, noted recently that “500,000 hectares of marshes have dried up and this is the main reason for the sandstorms in the region, as it has caused the displacement of many citizens living in the marshes.”

Poverty, Unemployment and Displacement

The river-damming and water diversion projects also play a role in the significant decline in wheat production, a long-time source of staple food for the indigenous people and livestock. Ahwaz is the second largest wheat-producing region in Iran, with around 62% of wheat production in the region being dependent on irrigation utilising water from its rivers. According to reports, wheat production in 2012 was half of that in previous years due to water shortages, which increased the prices of meat and bread across Iran. These problems have worsened since.

Whilst Ahwaz previously had around 2.3 million hectares of arable land in Ahwaz due to the five large rivers in the region, the dams and river diversion means most of these now heavily saline lands need extensive treatment and restoration in order to return to being productive farmland. Meanwhile, regional rainfall levels have decreased to an average of 120 mm, meaning the land cannot be cultivated without irrigation and drainage. Ecologists believe, however, that drainage will lead to environmental degradation, a sharp drop in groundwater aquifers, and increased pollution due to leakage, threatening an increase in water-related diseases affecting millions of hectares of land in Ahwaz.

Ahmad Landi, a faculty member at Ahwaz University (known in Farsi as Chamran University), revealed recently that “There are about 2.3 million hectares of land in northern Ahwaz (Khuzestan) suitable for cultivation, but only 18% of the land is in a good enough condition for cultivation.” Landi also revealed that 64% of agricultural lands in Ahwaz is now partly or wholly unsuitable for agriculture.

Many Ahwazi activists believe that the regime’s policy of dam-building and river diversion is part of a longstanding effort to make the area uninhabitable for the indigenous people, with Tehran attempting to change the demographic composition of Ahwaz as a means of securing its control over the region’s resources and denying the Ahwazi people any right over their lands or resources.  

 In a report published by DUSC in 2020 notes that agriculture has historically been an integral part of the life of Ahwazi citizens, with more than 40% of people engaged in agricultural employment of some form. While the amount of land in the region dedicated to agricultural purposes currently amounts to approximately 900,000 hectares, experts estimate that 2.5 million hectares there would be suitable for farming;  this is impossible at present, however, due to the regime’s marginalisation of the region and implementation of devastating projects that have severely damaged the land and either wasted or exported massive amounts of the water supply, along with introducing vast quantities of fertilisers and toxins in an irregular manner, particularly in the regime’s economically loss-making sugarcane plantations and refineries. As a result of all these factors, 40% of Ahwazi farmers and others engaged in agricultural work face poverty, destitution and homelessness, with many Ahwazis forced to move to other places in Iran or migrate abroad to survive.

The regime’s aforementioned sugarcane plantation project alone has caused the displacement of between 200,000 and 250,000 Ahwazis, according to a United Nations special rapporteur after a visit to the region.

Damaging Ecosystem

Along with the river-damming and diversion programmes, the regime’s obsessive focus on oil and gas production and refining and its sugarcane-growing project in Ahwaz, which Tehran is keen to turn into a heavy industry centre (without any benefit for its people, as always)  have helped to devastate the once-renowned marshes of Hor Howeyzeh and Falahiyeh, which not only sustained generations of Ahwazi fishermen, but wrecked the delicate ecosystem of marshes and the unique flora and fauna there. The increased salinity of the Karoon, which has risen by a quarter due to the reduced water flow, has left much of the remaining marshlands parched and lifeless, killing off marine life and forcing many of the native birds to migrate.

The level of the Karoon river, where oceangoing vessels once sailed alongside fishermen’s boats, ferries and yachts, has fallen by 80 per cent since 2000, showing the terrible effects of the regime’s dam-building initiatives.

 In some areas, the river is only 20 to 30 centimetres deep, while the stench of sewage in some parts of Ahwaz city which is bisected by the river, which is now too weak to carry the effluent away, makes the residents’ already tough living conditions even more difficult.  The continuing construction of more dams on Ahwazi rivers’ upstream leads many to expected that in the future the river will simply be a sewage channel.

The water crisis and the dam construction have caused other problems in Ahwaz. Ahwazi Organisation for Human Rights published that more than 700 villages in North Ahwaz have been suffering from lack of drinking water for more than 20 years, despite the government promises to resolve this crisis. For example, dozens of citizens of the village of Dab Hardan protested in front of the governorate’s headquarters in the city of the capital city, Ahwaz, calling on the Iranian authorities to resolve this crisis.

A report by DUSC revealed that the water crisis in Ahwaz has also spread across several rural areas, noting that “the water crisis in the city of Chobeideh continues to worsen, with its residents having to travel 35 km to Abadan city – home to one of the largest oil refineries in the Middle East – simply to purchase water for drinking and washing. While Abadan has been the source of much of Iran’s exports, its native Ahwazi population have not received any economic benefits from its presence and still lack essential services like running water.”

Radio Farda also reported that the water crisis led to a huge protest in the village of Gheyzaniyeh, noting: “Security forces stepped in and fired tear gas and plastic bullets into a crowd of residents in Iran’s oil-rich Khuzestan province [Ahwaz] who were protesting at the lack of drinking water.”

The report continued “The residents of Gheyzaniyeh’s district in the city of Ahwaz initially assembled in front of the district governor’s office on Saturday, 23 May, and then blocked the old Ahwaz-Ma’shor road, protesting the cut-off of drinking water in the area.”

Human Rights, Citizens’ Rights

The right to clean water for drinking, washing and ensuring economic wellbeing is a human right protected by international law. In 2010, the UN Human Rights Council adopted resolution 15/9, which “affirmed that the right to water and sanitation is derived from the existing right to an adequate standard of living” in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR).

Another article of legislation concerning freshwater resources, the 1997 Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses (UN Watercourses Convention/UNWC), calls on countries to focus on development and avoid pollution, although this convention focuses on the relationship between state parties, omitting any focus on citizens’ human right to water, being more concerned with cooperation between states over transboundary water resources.

More importantly in this context, Article 13, paragraph 1 (a), of the Charter of the United Nations provides that the General Assembly shall “initiate studies and recommendations to encourage the progressive development of international law and its codification. The codification and progressive development of rules of international law relating to the non-navigational uses of international watercourses would help to promote and implement the purposes and principles set forth in Articles 1 and 2 of the Charter of the United Nations, taking into account the problems affecting many international watercourses resulting from, among other things, increasing demands and pollution. Expressing the conviction that the framework agreement will ensure the utilisation, development, conservation, management and protection of international watercourses and promote the sustainable use of present and future generations.” Invocation of this legislation could help put pressure Iran to focus on development and work to avert or clean up pollution in areas close to the Karoon and other rivers in Ahwaz.

The role of International Law

The essential nature of water for survival, not just for humans but for all other species, and in all aspects of life, including food production, urban development and environmental wellbeing, means that international law plays a crucial role in ensuring access and limiting the impact of devastating initiatives such as the Iranian regime’s dam-building and river diversion programme through urging states to focus on developing and conscientiously utilising water resources and penalising those states and leaders who harm human populations and the environment through reckless or malicious withholding of these resources.

In addition, many regulations in international law that focus on relations between different countries regarding transboundary rivers, lakes or marshlands, such as the Hor al-Azim shared between Iran and Iraq, could be invoked to help address the crisis suffered by the Ahwazi people due to the Iranian regime’s theft and misuse of this crucial natural resource.

All international treaties, in accordance with the provisions of the principles of international law, clearly prohibit diversion of river water by an upstream country to the detriment of a downstream country, with no state, territory or canton allowed to alter the natural conditions of its territory to the detriment of its neighbour. According to the provisions of international law, any downstream state affected in this way has the right to veto any plan which may cause harm to it, with the government of the affected state having the right to oppose any change in the situation on its waterways, a regulation which would surely be applicable to Iraq.

To resolve the challenges facing states utilising shared water resources, several doctrines and international legal instruments have been adopted by states and international bodies. Four guiding theoretical principles – including territorial sovereignty, territorial integrity, equitable utilisation, and common management – have been used in allocating the resources of watercourses. Among these principles, equitable utilisation represents customary international law. This principle states simply that “the substantial interests of all riparian states should be reconciled in the most effective way,” adding that “the equitable and reasonable utilisation of shared watercourses is one of the fundamental principles of international water law.”

Many international regulations and treaties related to this issue have reflected the international community’s wish to find mutually agreeable solutions to problems related to water resources, in particular the exploitation of water resources and their environmental protection, with these efforts leading to the ratification of a number of conventions, including the Helsinki Rules of 1966, the Helsinki Convention on the Protection and Operation of Lakes and International Waterways in 1992, and the New York Convention on the Right to Use Waterways for Non-Shipping Uses in 1997, all of which led to the creation of solutions to problems regarding the use of waterways.

The Institute of International Law serves as a guide on international law in regulating the ban on the diversion of river water. The institute’s research findings were adopted at the Helsinki Conference in August 1966 under the title ‘Regulations on the Operation of International Rivers’, also known as the Helsinki Regulations. According to these regulations, if a government diverts international rivers at the expense of another, it will be responsible for all of its actions. In the United Nations in 1972, the United Nations General Assembly also ratified the sovereignty of states to exploit their share of water resources, provided that their actions do not prejudice the areas beyond national jurisdiction.

Moreover, the 1933 Montevideo Declaration affirms that states have the right to withdraw river water only on condition that this action does not to harm adjacent states. Indeed, this declaration emphasises the principle of restricting the free use of water, making it conditional on agreement between states.

The Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes (Water Convention) aims to protect and ensure the quantity, quality and sustainable use of these transboundary water resources by facilitating and promoting cooperation. Hence, parties are required to take measures to prevent, one party monopolisng control and reducing any transboundary impact on the environment, human health, safety and socioeconomic conditions. These measures include undertaking environmental impact assessments and other means of assessment, preventing and reducing pollution at its source, licensing and monitoring wastewater discharges and developing and applying best environmental practices to reduce inputs of fertilisers and hazardous substances from agriculture and other diffuse sources. Parties to this convention are obligated to use water resources sustainably, taking into account the ecosystem approach. They are also required to set water-quality objectives and criteria, draw up contingency plans and minimise the risk of accidental water pollution.

Article 1 of the San Salvador Protocol, adopted in 1988, also states: “Everyone shall have the right to live in a healthy environment and to have access to basic public services. The States Parties shall promote the protection, preservation, and improvement of the environment.” Principles 1 to 10 of the 1992 Rio Declaration contain similar rules. Principle 10 states: “Environmental issues are best handled with the participation of all concerned citizens, at the relevant level.”

Iranian Law

According to Iran’s domestic law, any actions that result in destruction or pollution of the environment or which upset the environmental balance are criminal and punishable, with Articles 57, 679, 680, 686, 688, and 689 of the Penal Code of the Islamic Republic of Iran laying out the penalties against violators. Article 50 of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran also provides for the protection of the environment, stating “Economic activities associated with environmental pollution or irreparable damage are prohibited.”

Conclusion

In conclusion, access to clean water is one of the most critical issues facing the people of Ahwaz, with the current situation not only leading to horrendous consequences for the indigenous Ahwazi people but for the region’s natural environment. While the demand for water continues to increase, its availability is dwindling due to the mass construction of dams and the diversion of most of its water resources to other regions. The remaining water resources are also under pressure because of excessive use and pollution, with severe climate events such as sandstorms, floods and droughts becoming more frequent and intense across the region as a result. 

These devastating and callous actions inflicted by Iran’s regime have caused numerous problems and created massive resentment not only in Ahwaz but across the border in Iraq whose peoples and natural environment are also suffering as a result. Although international law clearly states that legislation regarding inter-state waterways also applies domestically to use of the country’s internal rivers, which means that the Iranian regime does not have the right to dam and divert the rivers of Ahwaz, leaving its people without clean or potable water and devastating its environment,  Iran’s leaders have simply disregarded international law, and indeed Iran’s own laws, repeatedly violating fundamental legal precepts and treating the law and the people with contempt. 

Ahwazis view the regime’s dam-building and river-diversion programme as part of a deliberate long-term policy of ethnic cleansing aimed at changing the demographic balance in the region, due to its status as home to most of Iran’s natural resources such as water, oil and gas, through making the region uninhabitable for its indigenous people, destroying the economy and ecosystem and leaving Ahwazis with no choice but to emigrate. In this process, the regime is also destroying the unique flora and fauna of Ahwaz, devastating its wildlife, and wrecking the immense biodiversity of the region, with environmental experts warning of ecological catastrophe if these problems are not addressed.

An additional new crisis is the massive damage done to the marine life in the Arabian Gulf by Chinese trawlers which the Beijing-allied Iranian regime has given carte blanche to essentially strip the once-teeming waters of their fish stocks, leaving many Ahwazi fishermen destitute and forcing others, along with their Iranian peers, to travel to Somali waters where they must pay massive bribes to pirates in order to be able to fish.

The availability of freshwater throughout Ahwaz due to the clearly illegal actions of Iran’s regime is a critical issue and one of the most crucial challenges facing Ahwazis, with its importance set to increase in the future when it will undoubtedly result in mass migration.

The regime’s ongoing construction of dams in Ahwaz and diversion of the region’s  rivers must be subject to the rules of international law since these dams and the diversion of the indigenous people’s water supply currently play a major role in “harming people such as the spread of diseases; increasing poverty, unemployment and displacement as a result of building dams; and affecting the ecosystem, such as affecting the water level and damaging rivers and marshes,” in clear violation of international law and fundamental human rights.

As mentioned before, it should also be noted that international treaties also apply to domestic water issues. On this basis, some articles of international law in relation to international waters also apply domestically to the Ahwazi situation. For example, in terms of the amount of water available compared to the annual water consumption, Ahwaz now suffers from severe water shortages, despite the region being home to most of Iran’s rivers.

Chronic water pollution resulting from the discharge of polluted water from oil and gas refineries, factories and municipal wastewater contaminated with detergents, chemicals and toxins, also leaves much of the remaining water supply unusable, further undermining the security of the indigenous people, adding to their suffering and severely damaging the region’s ecosystem.

From the viewpoint of international law, the Iranian regime is responsible for the loss of lives and economic wellbeing in Ahwaz. For example, the first article of international law addressing the human right to a healthy environment was the Stockholm Declaration, adopted in 1972 at the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment, states in its first paragraph that “human beings have the basic right to freedom, equality and adequate living conditions in the environment, which enables them to live an honourable life.” The Declaration also states in its second principle: “The natural resources of the earth, including water, air, plants and natural ecosystems, must be protected and safeguarded through careful planning and proper management for the benefit of present and future generations.”

Ignoring these and other principles, the Iranian regime has chosen to inflict devastating policies that have directly caused an increase in deaths, migration, pollution, diseases, poverty and homelessness among Ahwazis through its programme of dam-building and river diversion. Although the Ahwazi people, as well Ahwazi and Iranian ecologists, numerous international reports, and Ahwazi MPs urging the Iranian regime to stop building dams and diverting rivers and to act in accordance with the principles of international law, the regime has flatly ignored all these appeals, leading to a crisis for the region’s indigenous people and devastation for their natural environment.

Given the regime’s awareness of the effects of its policies, this policy is, in short, a violation of international law by a leadership indifferent to international law and human rights, as well as being a violation of international humanitarian law which has caused and continues to cause grave harm to the health and lives of countless citizens.  

Article first published on Duruntash Studies Center. For the verification of references, please visit the original link.

Kamil Alboshoka is an Ahwazi researcher and international law specialist. He tweets under @KAlboshoka.

Rahim Hamid is an Ahwazi author, freelance journalist and human rights advocate. He tweets under @Samireza42.

Ruth Riegler is a Scottish writer, editor and supporter of universal freedom, democracy and human rights who previously lived in the Middle East.

Aaron Eitan Meyer is an attorney admitted to practice in New York State and before the United State Supreme Court, and a researcher and analyst. He has written extensively on lawfare, international humanitarian, and human rights law. He tweets under @Aaronemeyer.

State television showed rescue teams looking for survivors in the rubble of the two-story residential building located near a historic marketplace in the old district of the city of Ahvaz, capital of oil-rich Khuzestan province.

“The gas explosion led to the complete destruction of a two-story residential building… and four nearby residential buildings and six shops,” Ebrahim Qanbari, head of the fire department in Ahvaz, was quoted as saying by the semi-official Mehr news agency.

Four men and one woman were killed, and nine people were injured, Qanbari said.

Some of the explosions in the past few months appeared to be linked to Iran’s deteriorating infrastructure, while others may have been security-related such as blasts at sensitive military and nuclear sites.

Once called the most beautiful capital city of the Middle East, Beirut self-sacrificed in a huge explosion that exposed the hidden face of the evil Iranian regime and its proxies inside Lebanon. Going forward, the Iranian regime will lose its strategic defense embankments at an accelerated rate. The August 4th explosion had regional aftershocks and its first fragments landed in Iran. Protests and strikes in Iran are erupting from a rift that is likely stronger than the Beirut blast and is sweeping across the country. The nationwide protest by workers in Iran’s oil, gas, petrochemical and power plants is like the ammonium nitrate left over from 41 years of the reign of the Islamic Republic in Iran, being ignited.

Fearing the consequences of these strikes, contractors and site officials are trying to get the workers to return to their jobs by making promises, but so far, they have not been successful.

The strikes were initially started by North Azadegan oil field workers. They went on strike to protest the low wages given to them by Iran Ofogh company.

The voices of the workers on strike from the North Azadegan oil fields were quickly heard by other workers in the industry. Since Saturday, August 1^st, workers at the Qeshm heavy oil refineries, Abadan refinery, Parsian refinery, and Lamerd petrochemical have all gone on strike to protest the non-payment of wages and benefits that were once promised to them. Iran’s oil, gas and petrochemical strikes that are taking place now are reminiscent of the nationwide strikes by Iranian oil workers near the end of Shah’s rule in 1979, which brought the government to its knees.

Any regime with this degree of political and economic stalemate thinks about maintaining their assets at all costs. For the Iranian regime, the biggest assets outside its borders are its proxy forces. Inside Iran, it is the repressive apparatus that it uses to maintain its system, but this apparatus is extremely fragile and ineffective.

The owners of contracting oil companies are mostly IRGC retirees. They have always been in line with the Iranian regime’s goals of looting oil and violating workers’ rights in the oil and gas sector.

A video has emerged on social media showing a worker protesting the manner in which workers are treated. It has attracted attention on many online platforms. In it, he says, “A worker who is hungry will return to the streets no matter how much he is flogged.”

On June 11th, 2020 Omran Roshani Moghadam, an employee in the oil industry, hanged himself in the yard of an oil well in the Hoveyzeh oil field in western Khuzestan after failing to receive his wages.

The news of his death was met with numerous reactions from workers on social media. Many saying “How is it that we are sitting on an ocean of oil and gas, but one of us under pressure and hungry has to hang himself.”

The Khabar online news site reported on February 12th, 2019: “Iran has sold about $1337 billion in oil over the past 40 years, about half of which was realized in a single government era (Ahmadinejad’s 2 terms).

To save his system, Khamenei has repeatedly put his hand in the pockets of the Iranian people by raising the price of bread, electricity, gasoline, and diesel in order to cover his own expenses. At the same time as he resorts to selling Iran to foreign parties though unpatriotic agreements that don’t benefit the Iranian people.

Among the solutions that Khamenei has is to wait until the American Presidential election, hoping that the policy of giving concessions to his regime would be revived if Joe Biden defeats President Trump. So it does its best not to ignite riots and uprisings by suppressing them and focuses all its efforts to keep the society frozen until the end of the US election.

However, the workers resisted and did not budge. They raised their voices in protest and thwarted Khamenei’s entire plan.

The international community has also came out in support of the protesting workers throughout Iran.

The Industrial Global Union, representing 50 million workers and employees, expressed its solidarity with the striking Iranian workers and called for the continuation of these strikes and protests.

The Confederation of Australian Trade Unions also issued a statement expressing its support for the striking Iranian workers and called for an end to the dismissal of workers, the immediate payment of their deserved salaries, and the unconditional release of imprisoned workers.

The continuous and extreme erosion of the economic, social, and political foundations of the Mullahs’ regime has caused the conditions in Iran to be so dire that other levers such as Joe Biden, even if elected, cannot save the regime from its vortex of misery. 

Hassan Mahmoudi is a Europe-based social analyst, researcher, independent observer, and commentator of Middle Eastern and Iranian Politics. He tweets under @hassan_mahmou1. 

Ahwazi human rights groups have reported the arrest of an Ahwazi journalist, 38-year-old Fouad Albofteleh Nejat, on Friday, 14 August, by Iranian security and intelligence agents.

According to Khakzadegan telegram channel, Fouad, from Koy Ramadan district of the regional capital, Ahwaz, has worked for a number of local publications in the Ahwaz region, being targeted by the regime previously for his exposes of regime corruption and brutality towards the Ahwazi people. In 2008, he was dismissed from a reporter’s job for writing articles exposing the regime’s embezzlement and deliberate underdevelopment of Ahwaz, along with its brutal oppression and racism towards the Ahwazi people. In 2014, he was detained by regime forces for writing articles critical of the regime, and subjected to torture in one of the regime’s infamous ‘black site’ prisons and in the notorious Evin Prison in Tehran, supposedly on charges of ‘threatening national security’, a charge commonly levelled against dissidents. 

Fouad spent four months in Evin Prison before being released on bail, with his family reporting that while he’d been healthy before his imprisonment, the mental and physical torture to which he was subjected during his incarceration had left him with multiple medical problems, including seizures and panic attacks. He also began using sedatives and regularly visited a psychiatrist for help with the trauma which he suffered from as a result of the torture. 

Speaking on condition of anonymity due to well-founded fear of being targeted, a family member said that although Fouad had been a happy-go-lucky person previously, he had frequently broken down in tears following his imprisonment, saying, “They broke my dignity and humiliated me.” 

Fouad’s family are desperately worried for his safety following the latest arrest, with regime officials refusing to give them any information about his location or wellbeing. They have expressed grave concern that this already traumatised man will face further torture and physical and verbal abuse, worsening his already fragile health. 

The International Organisation for Human Rights and Freedom of Expression has ranked Iran as one of the world’s top five worst states for abuse of prisoners. The annual report of Reporters Without Borders on freedom of the press and protection of journalists’ rights around the world consistently includes Iran in the top five worst nations globally for the number of journalists arrested per capita. Ahwazi journalists face even worse conditions than their ethnically Iranian counterparts, with ethnically Persian journalists at least allowed a limited degree of freedom of expression; even this restricted degree of freedom is wholly absent for Ahwazis who are effectively treated as to second-class citizens due to their Ahwazi ethnicity, with any activism or journalism criticising the regime’s policies inevitably resulting in persecution, imprisonment, torture, and often execution.   

Many journalists and writers survive this systemic injustice and by either going into other professions or simply agreeing to toe the regime line, remaining silent on the regime’s crimes and repeating Tehran’s narrative in an effort to avoid persecution for themselves and their families.  

Others, like Fouad, courageously speak out and insist on retaining their journalistic integrity, despite the terrible price which the regime exacts for this principled commitment to truth. The total number of Ahwazi journalists, writers, photographers, poets and others imprisoned, tortured, ‘disappeared’ or executed by the regime for speaking truth to power may never be known.

A freelance journalist in Ahwaz, whose name is withheld here to protect him, said, “As a journalist, there’s no real journalism being done in Ahwaz now. The ‘news’ is confined to producing whatever reports the regime wants, repeating its data, reiterating what its officials say, and the only commentary allowed for its actions is praise. It’s not journalism, it’s stenography – I studied journalism and media studies, this is nothing to do with that. But I have no alternative but to obey orders – I have a family to care for. When I write about the daily oppression, the discrimination against Ahwazis, I have to send it out to fellow Ahwazi journalists in exile, to publish it under an assumed name. I am constantly scared – we’re prisoners in a country that’s one of the most repressive in the world for journalists and media workers – every Ahwazi media activist who’s spoken out has paid the price for it.”

Like all totalitarian states, the Iranian regime maintains silence through terror, ruthlessly targeting those who speak out for freedom and preserving a climate of constant fear and mistrust. For the regime, everything, no matter how innocuous, is perceived through the lens of state security, which is used to justify Orwellian repression against even coded criticism and to crack down brutally on outspoken critics, such as poets, teachers, writers, and journalists. In recent years, the already oppressed people of the Ahwaz region – one of the most deprived on earth despite holding about 95 per cent of Iran’s oil and gas reserved – have faced additional brutality as the leadership in Tehran launches more crackdowns against journalists, photographers, bloggers and anyone else who might expose the regime’s crimes.

As public anger grows at deteriorating living conditions, economic collapse and environmental catastrophe caused by years of deliberate regime neglect, even the usual draconian repression is increasingly inadequate to quell protests, even as the regime escalates the rate of executions, already the second-highest per capita globally after China’s.

The regime is increasingly alarmed at the long-concealed truth about its repression of the Ahwazis reaching the outside world as it attempts to polish its image to win acceptance by the international community. This has resulted in an increase in the targeting of Ahwazi dissidents in Europe and elsewhere, as well as persecuting journalists like Fouad Albofteleh Nejat; for Ahwazis simply speaking the truth is a ‘crime’ Iran’s regime cannot bear.

There are several cases of Ahwazi journalists who were unjustly arrested and jailed by the Iranian authorities in recent years. Some striking examples include the cases of Naim Hamidi and Sayed Nashan Al-Boshawka. Both journalists wrote articles criticising the performance of the education directorate in Ahwaz, condemning the terrible conditions and low quality of education in regional schools compared to other regions in Iran, and censuring the education ministry’s openly racist and discriminatory recruitment policies. These policies, see highly qualified Ahwazi teachers deliberately rejected in favour of less qualified, ethnically Persian teaching personnel. Following the controversy that broke out after the appearance of these pieces, the two journalists were summoned and detained by Iranian Intelligence services in 2018 and released on condition of not writing anything related to Ahwaz.

The list of such cases is lengthy. Mohammad Hassan Fallahieh, an Ahwazi journalist with the Arabic-language service of the public radio and TV broadcaster Al-Alam, was arrested in November 2006. He was tried by a revolutionary tribunal on a charge of spying and was sentenced to three years in prison. After serving his sentence, he had to escape the country and take refuge from UNHCR in Turkey and then came to the USA.

Another journalist who met the same fate was Yousef Azizi Bani Torof, an Ahwazi rights activist and writer and freelance journalist and former member of the Association of Iran’s Writers, who has translated many works from Arabic to Persian. On 25 April 2005, he was arrested at his home by security forces in connection with the Ahwazi popular uprising earlier that month and held at Evin Prison with other Iranian journalists and dissidents. He was released on 28 June 2005. In August 2008, he was condemned to five years in prison. While appealing the decision, he fled Iran and gained political asylum in the United Kingdom.

Ali Badri, an Ahwazi human rights activist and blogger, was arrested in 2011. He was writing in his own blog called Shataljarh on the cultural and civil issues of Ahwazis when he was fired from his job. After being released on bail, he got out of the country taking refuge in UNHCR in Turkey and eventually immigrated to Canada.

These cases are but a small sample of the systematic oppression and persecution of Ahwazi reporters and writers, who dare to uncover and address the issues related to the violation of Ahwazi human rights by the authorities or who criticise the Iranian government in any way. While other journalists throughout the country are frequently imprisoned and jailed for work deemed to be threatening to the regime, Ahwazi journalists face dual oppression and discrimination on the basis of their ethnic identity and as a result of focusing on Ahwazi cultural interests and other relevant identity issues, deemed taboo by the regime which seeks to impose a monolithic “Persian” identity on all of the residents, and to erase historic ties to the land and natural resources by non-Persian nations.

It is an economic policy at least as much as it is an ideologically hateful approach, part, and parcel to Khomeinism. Ahwazis have resided in the relevant territories for thousands of years; their lands contain water resources, gas and oil, which is the backbone of the regime’s economic survival. Acknowledging Ahwazi claims to the land would mean being stymied from pursuit of lucrative opportunities central to the regime’s self-preservation, such as the recently concluded a deal with China, which leases the oil field to Beijing for the next 25% and results to closer defence and security cooperation, particularly against Western countries.

The litany of arrests, abuses of the judicial process, and torture against Ahwazi writers, thinkers, human rights defenders, and journalists is long and precedes. However, the oppression has grown far worse under the Khomeinists. Since the installation of the Islamic Republic, Ahwazi journalists were subjected to unlawful arrests and baseless persecutions. Many have consequently described their experiences and suffered the after-effects of torture.

The international community has been strangely silent about the proliferation of such cases or failed to identify such cases as “Ahwazi”, perhaps as a result of pressure and disinformation by Iranian propagandists. More recently, Ahwazi human rights activism and efforts to shed light on the suppression of unique Ahwazi identity gained momentum in Europe and North America; however, major human rights organisations and activists are overall still mum on this issue. Despite recent criticism of the UN Special Rapporteur Agnes Callamard, who had promised to look into free speech issues related to Ahwazis following blistering rebukes, she continues to stay silent on the subject, instead focusing her expertise and resources on the support of questionable claims and technically poorly sourced reports of phone hacking by well-known public figures such as Jeff Bezos, who have little reason to fear or to claim harassment, especially in comparison to powerless dissidents and columnists held hostage by the regime’s policies in Iran.

Perhaps those who have spent the past couple of years obsessing about various unscrupulous political operatives masquerading as free press mascots, could spare a modicum of the resources devoted to that fruitless topic for more deserving candidates. Perhaps they could finally provide the much-needed assistance to the people with a record of peaceful human rights activities, who continue to suffer systematic persecution and are still in a position to be helped today.

Article first published on Dur Untash Studies Center.

Rahim Hamid is an Ahwazi author, freelance journalist and human rights advocate. He tweets under @Samireza42.

Irina Tsukerman is a New-York based Human Rights Lawyer, National Security Analyst. She can be followed under @irinatsukerman.

The former media officer and spokesman for the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahwaz (ASMLA), Yaqoub Hor Al-Tostari, has announced that he has renewed his hunger strike, the second such protest in the ‘Battle of the Empty Bowl’ as the hunger strikes have been named, to protest against the extension of his unjust detention in Denmark.

Tostari was arrested on February 3 in Denmark where he now lives in exile with his family. His arrest coincided with the arrests of Habib Jabor, the movement’s former leader, and his brother Nasser Jabor, also in Denmark, while in Holland Dutch security forces arrested the journalist Isa Sawari (Mehdi Fakher), a member of the ASMLA’s media office and presenter of a TV program on the Ahwazna channel.

Nasser Jabor’s wife has reported that her husband is suffering from severe spinal problems and needs immediate medical care, noting that due to physiological pressure and long hours of interrogation his pain has worsened and he needs to be admitted to hospital for treatment.

Nasser Jabor has been held in solitary confinement since February 3, treatment usually reserved for convicted and dangerous terrorists and murderers, or inflicted as a temporary measure in response to bad behavior. Many experts consider prolonged solitary confinement a cruel and unusual punishment.

Human rights bodies and legal sources revealed that Tostari’s hunger strike is part of an escalating protest at the Danish authorities continuing unjustified detention of the activist who has committed no crime, with the accusers providing no evidence to substantiate the allegations levelled against him by Iran’s regime which continues to target dissidents in Europe and worldwide.

The sources confirmed that the accusations directed against the members of the ASMLA are scurrilous, fabricated slanders on the Iranian regime’s behalf which are intended to smear and delegitimize a movement engaged in peaceful campaigning for freedom, justice, dignity and democracy for Iran’s brutally oppressed Ahwazi Arab population, long denied by Iran’s regime.

The sources further confirmed that, despite holding Tostari and the other activists for over six months, the Danish authorities have been unable to provide any evidence to their continued detention. Specifically, according to these sources the judge had question the police and the prosecutor’s inability to substantiate the initial charges alleging that the three detainees in Denmark had been engaging in acts of industrial, and other espionage, on behalf of Saudi Arabia after months of investigation and lack of transparency in the process, continuing behind close doors. Rather than present any evidence to these claims, however, the police and the prosecutor demanded more time for investigation and came back with unrelated charges accusing the detainees of a terrorism-related conspiracy, with political links to Saudi Arabia.

Throughout this experience, the detainees had been unable to engage with independent counsel, nor share their experiences with the media. Furthermore, the media coverage of these developments had been limited to the talking points provided by the authorities, and therefore, largely reflected, the government perspective.

Such media coverage has the effect of perpetuating biases and false perceptions in the public view of the situation, making it difficult for the average citizen to understand the scale of injustice being inflicted upon the Ahwazi asylees from Iran’s systematic oppression, one of whom is a Danish citizen.

Yaqoub Hor Tostari’s family has called for support for his struggle for justice and freedom, emphasizing that he has committed no crime and is being imprisoned as a result of unfounded allegations in an effort by Iran’s regime to silence dissidents who expose its well-documented crimes against humanity and speak out in defense of the long-withheld rights of the Ahwazi people.

To that effect, Iran is engaging in a form of lawfare which coopts, manipulates, and weaponizes European systems of justice against opposition and critics. It is a form of gaslighting and deception, that runs counter to Danish and Dutch commitment to human rights. For from upholding judicial and national independence and preserving the integrity of the legal processes, Iran’s campaign runs counter to European or Danish and Dutch own national security interests. This interference with the legal system is the highest form of disrespect for the sovereignty of these countries.

Al Tostari’s wife, who wished to withhold her name for fear of retribution against her family in Iran by the regime, said on Friday that Yaqoub will not break his hunger strike until his case and those of his fellow activists are heard and they receive a free trial, and that he is willing to starve to death in order attain justice. After saying this, she broke down in tears, pleading for media and human rights organizations to intervene and raise awareness of her husband’s case, to ensure a fair trial and to call for his release.

Until now, these cases have largely been ignored by the major human rights NGOs, such as Amnesty International’s chapter in Denmark, which perhaps, are concerned about the image of challenging Western governments over the plight of the victims of Iranian oppression.

Tostari’s wife added that Ahwazis had fled the regime’s murderous oppression to seek refuge in European countries, hoping that they would finally be able to enjoy long-denied democracy, freedom and human rights in safety and to speak out about the Iranian regime’s human rights abuses only to find themselves caught between the economic and political convergence of Iran and Western countries Tostari’s family has demanded that the UN’s Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, along with the Special Rapporteur on refugees’ rights, and the Danish government headed by the country’s Prime Minister, urgently and immediately intervene in the case to secure Yaqoub Hor Tostari’s release, especially since he has already been imprisoned for far longer than the legal period of detention for which he can be held without charge without any of the Iranian regime’s scurrilous allegations against him being substantiated in any way.

Until now, UN’s Special Rapporteur Agnes Callamard has not addressed the issue in public in any way. Callamard had expressed outrage after US liquidation of Iran’s head of the IRGC Al Quds force, the designated terrorist Qassem Soleimani.

Tostari has repeatedly refuted these allegations and called for an investigation into how the regime is putting pressure on officials to extend his detention in such a terrible unjust manner. The family stressed the need to galvanize effective solidarity with the cause of Tostari and his colleagues and fellow activists, particularly from institutions concerned with human rights, chiefly: Amnesty International, the Council of Europe (Le Conseil de l’Europe), Foundation for Human Rights Defenders (ProtectDefenders), the Front Line Foundation for the Protection of Defenders Of Human rights (frontlinedefenders), and the Danish Refugee Council (DRC).

In a related matter, the Ahwazi Organization for the Defence of Human Rights confirms that the measures taken by the Danish authorities, whether in the manner of arrest or detention, violate the terms stipulated in international conventions, as follows: First: the principle of the presumption of innocence, which is the most important principle in dealing with prisoners awaiting trial. None of the Ahwazi activists being held were imprisoned to penalize them or charged or tried before detention, and prison authorities must take this into account, in compliance with Article (11) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states: Every person accused of a crime is considered innocent until proven guilty by law in a public trial in which he has the necessary guarantees for his defence.

Second: The judicial process against Yaqoub Hor Tostari has gradually extended his detention without justification or evidence in violation of Article (9) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which states that any individual arrested or detained on a criminal charge shall be brought promptly to a judge or official legally authorized to take direct responsibility for judicial functions and shall have right to be tried within a reasonable time or released.

The detention of persons awaiting trial may not be the general rule. However, their release may be suspended on guarantees to ensure that they will attend the trial at any other stage of the judicial process and to ensure that the sentence is organized when necessary.

A couple of weeks ago, starting on July 21, 2020, Ahwazi activists in Germany held a sit-in protest and hunger strike outside the Danish Embassy in Berlin which lasted for four days in solidarity with the four detained ASMLA members. During the peaceful demonstration, the participants delivered messages to the Danish and Dutch embassies protesting against the detention of the activists and of prominent Ahwazna TV media anchor Eissa Mahdi al-Fakher The Ahwazi activists, who have named their series of hunger strikes the ‘Battle of the Empty Stomach’, also called on Denmark and the Netherlands not to be cowed or misled by Iranian regime pressures or the regime’s very typical use of empty threats and blackmail over economic deals.

In addition, on Monday July 27, members of Belgium’s exiled Ahwazi community staged a protest in front of the EU Parliament calling for the immediate release of the detained Ahwazi members of ASMLA.

Protesters in the Netherlands also staged a peaceful demonstration in solidarity with the imprisoned activists on Friday August 7, calling on the Dutch government to release the journalist Isa Sawari (known as Mehdi Fakher). So far, however, the protests met with limited media coverage nor generated responses from the relevant government officials.

However, far from being seen as an attempt to interfere with the independence of the judicial process, such efforts should be viewed as an attempt to draw attentions to the violation of the due process rights of the detainees and to restore the process, for which the detainees and the families have the highest level of respect.

The backstory to these unfounded allegations is political, rather than legal. All four detainees were arrested the day following the conclusion of a lucrative pharmaceutical deal between Denmark and the Iranian government. Both Denmark and the Netherlands have had a series of pharmaceutical deals and investments inside the country.

The Ahwazis have been a long source of irritation for the Iranian, since over the years they have gotten increasingly vocal and successful at bringing attention to Tehran’s abuses, including hosting a successful conference for the EU parliamentarians in Brussels shortly prior to the arrests. In the past, the regime has targeted the detainees through assassination attempts and spying operations.

Relevant accessories to attempt murder and espionage have been convicted in Scandinavian courts. Despite these instances of Iran’s obvious intervention in European affairs, real accountability has avoided Tehran, allowing it instead, to continue business dealings with the countries in question, but using the Ahwazi critics as leverage.

The legal process in Denmark and the Netherlands treats these past assassination and intimidation attempts as separate cases, unrelated to the current plight of the detainees. A fair process would include looking at the totality of circumstances and examining all the relevant facts, not just the convenient optics delivered by the police and the prosecutor on the basis of evidence that the detainees have not had the opportunity to examine properly, at least in part due to the ongoing pandemic.

At least part of the apparent reason for this unreasonably prolonged process is to shut down dissent by ASMLA and its members, affiliates, and associates, to intimidate other opposition, and to keep these specific Ahwazi activists from speaking out. The longer term goal, past keeping them silences for as long as possible, is to discredit the detainees and their efforts through an effective and wide ranging character assassination, disinformation about ASMLA and it activities, and the use of information warfare – which may include tampering with evidence – to corrupt the legal process and to taint the image and reputation of the detainees.

The more time they remain isolated and unable to participate effectively in their own defense and in the exposure of the political issues hijacking and driving this incomprehensible and corrupt legal farce the more like that is to happen.

Irina Tsukerman is a New-York based Human Rights Lawyer, National Security Analyst. She can be followed under @irinatsukerman.

Rahim Hamid is an Ahwazi author, freelance journalist and human rights advocate. He tweets under @Samireza42.