Experts and Activists Criticize Rouhani: Withdraw the Title of ‘Most Environmentalist Government’ from Your Cabinet
Nearly one hundred experts, journalists, and environmental activists signed a letter addressed to Hassan Rouhani criticizing government policies and calling on him to withdraw the title of “most environmentalist government” from his cabinet.
In the letter published on Monday, June 17, referencing Hassan Rouhani’s slogans during his election campaign, it stated: “Due to making inappropriate decisions and implementing various projects without attention to actual environmental assessments, one can conclude that the claim of being the ‘most environmentalist government’ was raised purely for political objectives.”
The letter also referenced several mistaken government decisions in the field of environmental protection, including: approval of water transfer projects from the Caspian Sea and Persian Gulf to central Iran, rhetorical and unscientific statements about water transfer and dam construction projects, especially following recent floods, disregard for the conditions of environmental activists, appointment of unqualified managers, disregard for scientific research and failure to use the results of environmental project assessments, uncontrolled imports of genetically modified products, and more than 10 other issues.
Among the signatories are the names of recognized university professors and researchers such as Hossein Akhani, Ismail Kahram, Parviz Kardavani, Asghar Mohammadi Fazel, Abdolhossein Vahab Zadeh, and activists and experts such as Hedayeh Tehrani (actress), Mohammad Darvish, and Ali Mohammad Shaeri (parliamentary representative), as well as a large number of environmental journalists.
Source: Voice of America
