Ongoing protests and sit-ins of farmers in Isfahan on the bed of Zayandehrood River for their water rights
15-November-2021
Category: Labor and guilds
14-November-2021
Newsgroup: Workers and Guilds –
Breathing in Confinement: On November 14, for the seventh day in a row, farmers and people of Isfahan protested against the lack of water supply, on the bed of the dried-up river of Zayandehrood River near the Khajoo Bridge.
According to “Breathing in Confinement”, the news organ of the Prisoners’ Rights League in Iran, on November 14, 2021, for the seventh day in a row, farmers from different parts of Isfahan rallied to protest the lack of water supply and the illegal transfer of water from Isfahan, which has dried up the Zayandehrood River. In addition to farmers, other people also joined the rally.
Farmers in Isfahan protest the government’s policies that have caused a water shortage crisis and the drying up of the Zayandehrood River. This crisis, which has recently turned to a “super crisis”, leading to environmental consequences, including landslides in Isfahan and other cities, as well as devastating effects on the living conditions of farmers.
During the ongoing rallies, protesters spoke in defense of farmers’ water rights and the preservation of Isfahan’s environment. “We have a document from 700 years ago,” said one farmer. They have taken our water for still mill factory, for Mobarakeh Steel. Their corrupted sons took our agricultural water to plant peaches on the mountain where there is no land nor electricity. The project was called Touba project . The mountain which was the people’s pastures. All these started from the time of Hashemi and Khatami.”
The presence of security forces intensified the farmers’ protests. Farmers took the camera of a security guard in plain clothes who was filming the protesters.
The farmers said: “Don’t they themselves say that JCPOA once for ever! “Now we Zayandehrood River once for ever.”
During the farmers’ protest rally on Friday, to which other groups of people also joined, protesters chanted: “No nation has seen so much injustice; “Be careful of the day we decide to fight.”
Experts say that the water shortage in Iran has become a “super-crisis” that has posed numerous and serious dangers to human life and that of other creatures. The drying up of wetlands, rivers and lakes, the intensification of deforestation and desertification, and land subsidence are among the consequences of the reduction of water resources in Iran.
In the last three years, Isfahan farmers have repeatedly staged sit-ins and protest rallies to achieve their water right, but each time they have been silenced, either by the promise of the authorities or by repression, beatings and arrests.