IRAN FARMERS PROTEST DROUGHT CAUSE BY REGIME CORRUPTION
by Poorang Novak
Farmers in central Iran are increasingly turning to protests in order to push the authorities into finding a solution to the severe drought that is plaguing the county and causing once fertile fields to turn to dust.
Every day, farmers in Varzaneh have been holding a small protest at the town entrance, parking their long idle tractors next to the canal that once irrigated their fields, but dried up years ago.
Earlier this month, protests in southwestern Iran over water shortages led to 11 demonstrators being shot by security forces, who were sent to quash the legitimate protest with bullets and tear gas.
Iran’s drought
The drought currently affects over 95% of Iran according to the Iranian Meteorological Agency, which is the worst drought in decades. But the problems have been exacerbated by decades of mismanagement and corruption by the Iranian Regime, who refuse to recognise the reality of climate change and put in place measures to deal with it, preferring to accuse Israel of stealing its rain instead.
The Regime also gets to choose who should get water and who should be deprived.
Currently, the newly built factories, which are run by the Regime’s Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), are allowed to syphon off what little water there is for operations that do not include providing food for the people of Iran. While the Regime has also been caught diverting water from ethnically Kurdish and Arab areas, which contain natural springs, to ethnically Persian areas.
Many people have become sick due to the lack of clean drinking water and, if the crisis is not resolved, many will die.
Uprising
These water protests are part of a much larger uprising in Iran, which began in December over the release of a draft budget that cut subsidies for the poor in favour of increased military spending. These protests quickly spread and took on more issues, like human rights, Iran’s support for foreign wars, and the water shortage. The people are loudly stating that the root of all of their problems is the Iranian Regime and they want the mullahs out.
Since the protests began, at least 50 demonstrators have been shot dead in the streets, over 8,000 have been arrested and threatened with the death penalty, and 14 tortured to death in prison.
Despite the crackdown, the protests have not stopped. The Iranian people have continued in vigour, desperate to end the scourge of the mullahs.
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