Clashes between security forces and villagers in Khuzestan leave several injured
A human rights activist group accused Iran’s security forces of firing buckshot at impoverished rural residents in Khuzestan province by posting videos on social networks.
The video, released by the “Ahvaz Human Rights Organization” on Wednesday, shows some residents of Abu al-Fazl village in the suburbs of Ahvaz with buckshot wounds on their bodies.
The “Ahvaz Human Rights Organization” says these individuals resisted and protested against the Foundation for the Oppressed, which claimed ownership of their lands, and security forces wounded and detained them.
The Foundation for the Oppressed’s attempt to evacuate the lands of this village was also reflected in the Wednesday edition of Shargh newspaper, Tehran print edition.
According to the newspaper, residents of Abu al-Fazl village, numbering 300 households, have documents showing they have lived in this location for nearly 40 years, “but the Foundation for the Oppressed claims ownership of their land and prevents the provision of services and rural codes to their settlement.”
The Shargh newspaper reporter then wrote that the most important question for the people of Abu al-Fazl village these days is: if the Foundation for the Oppressed’s duty is to care for the deprived classes, who is more deprived than them?
The Foundation for the Oppressed is one of Iran’s largest economic institutions, and its head is selected by the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic. In recent weeks, a television interview with Parviz Fatah, head of the Foundation for the Oppressed, made headlines and drew considerable attention.
In this interview, he said that some senior political and executive figures of the Islamic Republic do not return the Foundation’s properties. He specifically mentioned Gholamali Haddad-Adel, senior adviser to the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic, who controls a school worth 200 billion tomans and should return it.
However, Mr. Fatah apologized a few days after this interview, saying his remarks were “mistaken” and “incomplete, inaccurate, and unjust.”
Source: Radio Farda
