Peaceful activists attacked by regime and oppositionRegime hard-liners and chauvinists in the Iranian “opposition” have united to attack grass-roots environmental campaigners in Ahwaz City, accusing them of fabricating evidence to incite ethnic unrest.
Thousands of city residents from a range of social backgrounds have demonstrated on the banks of the Karoun river in recent months to highlight the growing water crisis in the region, as well as the effects of industrial pollution on citizens’ health.
Iranian news agency Jahan News, which is widely believed to be linked to the Iranian intelligence services, claimed the campaign to stop the diversion of the Karoun River to Isfahan is being run by the “Hypocrites”, a reference to the Mujahideen-e Khalq. It accused the campaign of inciting ethnic conflict in the Arab majority region of south-west Iran, although ethnicity has not been
Meanwhile, the “opposition” Pan-Iranist Party has accused the World Health Organisation of being compromised by “separatists” after it put Ahwaz City at the top of the world’s most polluted cities. The avowedly Nazi organisation, which seeks to re-establish a Persian empire, claimed that the Ahwaz News Agency has misled the international agency, even though the statistics have been compiled from data reported by national organisations under government control. In similar vein as the Iranian regime, the Pan-Iranists dismiss environmentalism in Ahwaz as a separatist “anti-Iranian” plot promoted by foreign governments.
The environmental campaign has made no political or ethnic demands, other than to protect health and welfare in a region that the United Nations Environment Programme claims is witnessing an ecological crisis.
Local Majlis members recently resigned from parliament, accusing the Rouhani administration of discriminating against the Arab-majority Khuzestan province and creating a catastrophic environmental crisis. Meanwhile, Ahwaz City has seen thousands struck down by severe respiratory distress caused by pollution brought by acid rain storms.
The unity between regime hard-liners and unpopular fascist elements within the “opposition” suggests both have an interest in persecuting an Arab population by portraying all demands and concerns as a national security problem to be solved by violent repression.
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