Iran has been suffering from the worst drought in 50 years. Already, this past July, there were protests in Ahvaz, the capital of Khuzestan Province, in southwestern Iran, over the government’s inability to deal with the water crisis in that area. Now the protests over water have just erupted in Isfahan, Iran’s third largest city, where both the historic drought, and the long-term diversion of water from the city’s river, the Zayandeh Rud, to the province of Yazd, have brought out farmers and their supporters for several weeks of peaceful protests. A report on those protests, and how the regime suppressed them, is here: “Iranian regime kills protestors in central city of Isfahan,” by Benjamin Weinthal, Reuters, November 26, 2021:
Iranian security forces targeted farmers with gunfire and tear gas in the central city of Isfahan on Thursday and Friday in response to ongoing peaceful protests in the region.
The protest was against water shortages and at times the legitimacy of the theocratic state. Photographs on Twitter appear to show the murders of at least two Iranians.
“Horrific images of my compatriots in the Iranian city of Isfahan being slaughtered by ruthless Ayatollah regime’s thugs & security apparatus for peacefully protesting against the regime! This older woman was shot in cold blood on the streets. Are you seeing this @StateDept?” tweeted Karmel Melamed, an Iranian-American journalist.
“It wasn’t hooligans or thugs who shot at me. It was the security forces,” said a bloodied farmer in video footage posted by the Iranian-American journalist Masih Alinejad.
All over Iran, the news by now has spread on social media about how a merciless regime used live fire to quell peaceful protestors, killing at least two, one of them an elderly woman.
She [Masih Alinejad] tweeted, “For years the Islamic Republic blamed hooligans for attacks on people. He [the bloodied farmer] is one of the many eyewitnesses who say the security forces are behind the attacks. We need international media.”
Alinejad added in a second tweet, “This is what is happening in Iran right now. People took to the streets in Isfahan for a peaceful protest but they are being violently suppressed by the regime. West is busy getting a nuclear deal. You must warn the Islamic Republic that there will be consequences for such brutality.”
Iranian dissidents ignited Twitter with the hashtag #BloodFriday in Isfahan. The regime pulled the plug on internet connections in Isfahan, according to Iranian human rights experts.
Alinejad showed dramatic pictures of severely injured protesters and a security official firing shots at the farmers….
These images of the regime’s brutality in Isfahan have now been seared into the brains of Iranians everywhere. They can see for themselves the severely wounded – some shot in the face – and the dead, murdered by the regime’s security men — not “hooligans,” as the regime likes to blame whenever protests are violently put down – who fired point blank at unarmed and peaceful protestors.
One of the widely circulated photos from Isfahan is of a middle-aged man, sitting in the road, his face a grimace of mental anguish and physical pain – you can see the deep gashes on his face, covered in blood from shrapnel.
What began as a protest over water policy metastasized into a direct challenge to the regime, with the protesters chanting slogans against the Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei: “Death to the dictator! Death to Khamenei!” This is what led the security officials to use live fire, to shut down quickly those seditious expressions of rage against the rulers. And it was not only the Supreme Leader who was being chanted about, but also the whole crew of rapacious and cruel clerics who have run the country since 1979, and brought it to economic and, even more importantly, moral ruin.
Isfahan, Iran’s third-largest city, has been the site of protests over water shortages. Protests have been held in the dried-up riverbed of the Zayandeh Rud, the largest river in the region. The regime-controlled news agency Fars said demonstrators threw rocks and set fire to a police motorcycle and an ambulance.
Water from the Zayandeh Rud river has for almost two decades been diverted from Isfahan to irrigate farmland in Yazd. Some in Isfahan believe that the diversion was the work of Mohammad Khatami, Iran’s president from 1997 to 2005, who is from Yazd and may have wanted to benefit his home city.
The regime claims that the protesters threw rocks at the police and set fire to police motorcycles and an ambulance. But there was no evidence, not according to those taking part in the protests, nor in the videos of the protests, of any violence by the protesters. There were fires, but these were caused by the security men who set alight the protesters’ tents.
“They are in groups of 40-50 on streets around Khaju Bridge and are estimated at around 300,” Fars said.
If the official news agency, Fars, says there are “300 protesters,” you can be sure the real number was in the thousands. Fars is the Iranian version of Pravda or Izvestia; it makes up the “news” to conform to the regime’s needs, and in this case the regime wants to downplay the size of the protests in Isfahan.
Hundreds of protesters clashed with police in Isfahan, according to Iranian news agencies and social media posts, after officers fired tear gas at demonstrators backing farmers demanding water for crops.
The clashes only came after the police fired tear gas at demonstrators who up to that point had been entirely peaceful. Note that there is no mention here of demonstrators “throwing rocks” or setting police vehicles on fire, as the official Fars news agency would subsequently claim..
Overnight, farmers holding a two-week-long peaceful sit-in to protest water shortages in the drought-stricken region were dispersed by unidentified men who set fire to their tents. Social media posts said they were security forces while state media said they were “thugs.” State media earlier said farmers had agreed to leave after reaching a deal with authorities….
If the social media reports insist that the “security forces” set fire to the farmers’ tents, and the state media claims that the arsonists were not police but “unspecified thugs” who suddenly showed up at the protest, I know – don’t you? — whose version I believe.
In Ahwaz in July, the protestors were also peaceful, but there too the regime gave the go-ahead for live fire to be used. At least a dozen protesters were killed.
Sheina Vojoudi, an Iranian dissident who fled to Germany to escape persecution, told the Post that “The protesters in Isfahan gathered peacefully and asked for their rights. The right of using Zayandeh Rud has been given to them during Reza Shah’s time and this regime deprived them of their legal rights. Water scarcity is a very important problem in Iran but with this tyrannical and authoritarian regime in power, we can never solve the problem.”
She said ” All these problems only can be solved after the downfall of the Islamic Republic because this regime only supports its proxies to destabilize the Middle East and never thinks of the true owner of the land that they occupied. The protesters only demanded their rights but the regime answered them with bullets. Iranians have to comprehend that with this regime our days will be worsened day by day. Today people in Isfahan blamed Ali Khamenei directly and chanted ‘an army (of the people) has appeared to fight the Leader (Ali Khamenei).’…
This was the seditious chant in Isfahan against the Supreme Leader that no doubt has made Tehran most anxious: “An army (of the people) has appeared to fight the leader (Ali Khamenei).” A direct call for regime overthrow could not be tolerated, hence the security men set the farmers’ tents on fire and shot directly at protesters to send them scattering in retreat.
Vojoudi added that “Iranians from other cities have announced that they will protest to support the people of Isfahan. Now we Iranians know exactly that the enemy of our nation has occupied our country since 1979 and we must liberate our country. This is a sure thing that will happen very soon. If the free world wants to stand on the right side of history, they should support the Iranian people who have been fighting for their freedom for the last 43 years. The Iranians need free internet because the regime has already shut down the internet in Isfahan. They want to kill the protesters like in November 2019 and that must be stopped. Soon Khuzestan, Yazd, and other cities will also come to the streets and they will face the same danger.”
Will protesters appear elsewhere? In Khuzestan, in southwest Iran, they already have. Peaceful protests began in Khuzestan in July but then were violently suppressed by the regime; since the summer the protesters have been quiet. But now those protests have apparently started up again in Ahvaz (the capital of Khuzestan), and one likes to think this is in sympathy with the protesting farmers in Isfahan. In Yazd, there must be mixed feelings. On the one hand, the farmers in Yazd are on the side of their fellow farmers in Isfahan against the regime, and on the other hand, they don’t want to give up the water that for nearly two decades has been diverted from the Zayandeh Rud river in Isfahan and used to irrigate farms in Yazd.
Many Iranians, and not only in Isfahan, have concluded that there will be no amelioration of the water scarcity until the regime itself is overturned. That is why, to the regime’s great alarm, the farmers of Isfahan went from demanding a solution to the water problem to chanting the very last thing those in power in Tehran want to hear: “Death to the Dictator! Death to Khamenei! “ And re-purposing the central notion in Twelver Shiism, that of the Hidden Imam who will someday appear and, with Jesus, bring peace and justice to the world, those aggrieved farmers also shouted, even more frighteningly: “An army (of the people) has appeared to fight the leader (Ali Khamenei).”
Is this one more example of the regime managing to suppress with a vindictive thud a challenge to its existence, or could it spell the beginning of the end, as many Iranians hope, for the cruel clerics who still rule the roost in Tehran? Stay, as they say, tuned.
mortimer says
The corrupt mullahocracy is a bigger problem to Iranians than the drought. It is a drought of freedom of speech, a drought of freedom of assembly, of freedom of critical thought, of freedom to innovate and invent. When the counter-revolution comes, the corrupt mullahs will swing from the lamp posts. They betrayed their own country and their own people for the last 50 years. Disgraceful.
mortimer says
Correction last 42 years.
Buraq says
“It wasn’t hooligans or thugs who shot at me. It was the security forces,” said a bloodied farmer in video footage posted by the Iranian-American journalist Masih Alinejad.
Sadly, the security forces are comprised of hooligans and thugs. And their political leaders are also hooligans and thugs. But the farmer will get the last laugh. These hooligans and thugs will end up swinging from Tehran lamp posts!
Their days are numbered! Clowns!
Walter Sieruk says
As a former Muslim revealed an important reality when he wrote “The Islamic republic of Iran exists and operates as what every fundamentalist dreams of, an Islamic state ruled by sharia …” He further exposes that “What followed its establishment was the inevitable consequence and inexorable logic of its Islamic premise; state terrorism, a merciless tyranny.” [1]
Furthermore, in the book entitled HOW ISLAM PLANS TO CHANGE THE WORLD, by William Wagner on page 208 the reader is informed that “The creation of the Islamic republic in Iran has had the effect that many from that country have become disillusioned with Islam and are looking to leave Iran. ” This is a point worth pondering.
[1] THE ISLAM IN ISLAMIC TERRORISM by Ibn Warraq page 347.
Walter Sieruk says
From 1979 to the year 2020 it been forty years of horror and misery since the establishment of Islamic tyranny of Iran Based only lies, deceptions and deadly violence from those in power in that harshly oppressive “mullah tyranny ‘ of Iran . Just look what Islam which Sharia law has none to people of Iran.
In other words, since 1979 this Sharia law Islamic regime was founded on false promises, Islamic violence and lying words of Ayatollah Khomeini of Iran in his deception of the Iranian people.
To put this in another way, that Islamic regime is based in the foundation of false and empty promises. As well as lying words. After the fiendish Muslim clerics obtained total power in Iran they showed their true colors by having their Islamic state police who are called the “Revolutionary Guards truest the people on Iran in many heinously brutal and ruthless ways. As, for example, their brutal, callous misogyny against both girls and women.
This statement is explained, in some detail, by the following. This tyrannical Islamic regime in Iran that so falsely and inappropriately has the word “republic” in its title. It should be made known that this called the “Iranian Revolution” turned out to be a hoax. Ayatollah Khomeini before achieving power in Iran in his lying and deceptions presented himself to the Iranian people as if he was someone who would be in power would give freedom to the people of Iran with any tyranny. The reality turned out to be just the opposite.
As explained by a former Muslim as well as a man who took part in this Islamic “revolution “ ,who is now a Christian informs the reader of his book that “Prior to the Revolution no one ever imagined that other political parties would be suppressed under the rule of Ayatollah Khomeini. He had promised that all groups would have freedom to run their own campaigns after the Revolution. He even stated that governing system would be based on the decision of the people via a referendum. He never spoke of a system that would be governed by Islam. He even made clear that mullahs would not take part in any political activities, and that they would only be allowed to teach spirituality… Immediately after the Revolution, mullahs rushed into government offices to occupy the most important political l positions, making it difficult for the interim secular government to function … The mullah’s occupation of position was exactly the opposite to what the Ayatollah Khomeini had promised before the Revolution.”. [1]
In other words, the insincere, disingenuous and outright lying Ayatollah Khomeini made many bogus promise he really had no intention of keeping. His lying deception worked, for he achieved great power in Iran.
Furthermore, of the many heinously evils outcome s of that Islamic “revolution” is the extremely cruel, brutal and demonic misogyny of this hideous Islamic regime. Not only against women but even young girls. As explained by a former Iranian Revolutionary Guard member who defected to the West and how now lives in America his book also informs the reader about the malicious and murderous affront girls in Iran’s Evin prison which reads that those in power ,the “paraded teenage girls in front in front of me as they led them to their deaths. These girls were barely out of their childhood, barely old enough to think of themselves, much less form thoughts against the state. They knew nothing about the machinations of politics. They were innocent in every sense of the word and certainty innocent of trumped –up charges that led to their imprisonment. Yet they suffered fates too brutal for even the most vicious criminal. ..Their few remaining moments of life had been filled with the level of abuse that few can imagine…The author further states “They tortured and killed young girls, in God’s name and before their execution they raped them because they believed that if a girl dies virgin, she will go to heaven, and they wanted to deny them this reward.” [2]
This is as malice -filled and viciously wicked as can possibly be. This, very much, reflects the Wisdom found in the Bible which reads “All the days of the oppressed are wretched.” Proverbs 15:15. [N.I.V.]
[1] ISLAM THE HOUSE I LEFT BEHIND by Daniel Shayesteh . Pages 90, 91
[2] A TIME TO BETRAY by Reza Kahlili. Pages 2,3. 117.
roberta.park@mail.com says
Every home owner in Israel is watering his lawn right now, while drinking an ice cold glass of h2o.
Maybe if Iran would burn a few thousand more U.S. flags Allah would make it rain.
roberta says
I screwed that one up.
Walter Sieruk says
The Iran people need for a rather good future government in Iran , in place of that hideous Islamic tyranny that they suffer under now,.
The political philosophy of John Locke might be of some importance on creating an Iranian government the respects the rights of its citizens.
For Locke taught that people do have natural rights. If those basic humans rights completely disregarded as freedom from tyrannical “mullah regime” of Iran , the citizens do have every to gather together to overthrow that oppressive dictatorship and replace it with a genuine government that respects the rights of the people, as ,for example for a choice of faith , what to wear. listen to music ,in other a search for a person to find his of her own happiness.
Freedom from fear or harm by any type of State police , as that Islamic regimes band of brutal and opressive thugs who are called Iran’s “Revolutionary Guards ”
No more living in fear as now in that current heinous “mullah tyranny” in power in Iran.
To such a situation as this the wisdom printed by Benjamin Franklin in his periodical POOR RICHARD’S ALMANAC may apply ,which reads “Those who are feared are also hated.”
OLD GUY says
Yes the religion of love and peace killing in the name of the islamic dictatorship. Funny how this works if you are an atheist dictator and kill your own population it’s a crime against humanity. If you are the leader of an Islamic dictatorship the world turns a blind eye to your killing of your citizens and will sit at the table of trade with you. Or as Biden has done begs you for more oil or sends you a plane load of cash.
Michael says
Khuzestan is inhabited by Arabs, (mainly Shia), Bakhtiari, Kurds and Christian Armenians. They were semi autonomous Arabistan until 1924 when the Shah decided to get a grip on the source of most of his wealth. (Anglo-Persian oil (later to be named BP) were paying him for the right to exploit the southern oilfields of Khuzestan).
Today’s riots are a continuation of the separatist struggle.
The people of Khuzestan feel they are entitled to a bigger share of Iran’s wealth, including water.