Iran’s Land Is No Longer at Peace

Sohila. Sh. FNA News Agency: This is Iran. Rest, my land. I know you are grieved by humans and want to shake the earth and time together. Injustice, crime, and inequity have darkened the sky and disturbed your depths, but know that the cruelty of humans who have lost God among metal bars and golden shrines will come to an end. So rest. Do you see how your unrest burns both soil and grass? It is painful, O land, that in your turmoil, unknowingly and unwillingly, you sacrifice the poor and the oppressed.

The discourse turns to the land of Kermanshah, which trembled on Sunday night this week and bereaved many of our countrymen. The death toll has risen to more than 400 people, and the wounded exceed 2,000.

Twelve thousand rural and urban residential units have been completely destroyed, and another 15,000 units are no longer habitable. Of course, most villages have lost any security due to complete destruction. Even military barracks and shelters of soldiers stationed on the border lacked necessary fortifications and suffered many casualties.

People are homeless and displaced. They have neither bread nor water to eat, nor clothing to warm themselves. There is no word of a safe place to shelter at night. The bereaved strike their heads and faces and are unwilling to abandon the displaced. Few rescue teams have asked people to evacuate the perimeter of collapsed houses so operations can proceed quickly. But the limited relief facilities and lack of proper management do not give people sufficient confidence. Their loved ones may still be under the rubble, in their final moments, waiting for rescue.

Among the dead and wounded of Sarpol-e Zahab are residents of Mehr Housing homes. Two years ago, they received the keys to these units in hopes of homeownership and trusted government officials overseeing the Mehr Housing project.

But today, when these newly built homes have suffered more than 80 percent damage and loss of life, those same officials say without hesitation that Sarpol-e Zahab’s Mehr Housing was built on a fault line.

This is Iran, and those who were pleased by the government’s promise of affordable shelter had their homes collapse on their heads. Because the Islamic Republic regime did not consider them worthy. They were condemned, due to their low income, to live in homes that lacked the most basic standards of land location and construction.

Rest, my land. All the bereaved families of Kermanshah are grateful to God today. Had the earth trembled during school hours, perhaps no child or adolescent would have reached home. Because they were condemned to learn in schools that are now 20 to 100 percent destroyed. They are still grateful that the earth did not shake in the middle of the night. Because in the early evening hours, many had not yet returned home from work.

This is Iran. A land where 80 percent of its cities face serious earthquake risk, and people experience earthquakes above 7 on the Richter scale once every 10 years. Each time, the victims of earthquakes are those who lack safe shelter and whose homes lack minimum safety standards. Government officials have no measures and continue only to offer slogans.

Islamic Republic officials, in the most cautious statistics they recently announced, consider more than 30 percent of the country’s schools vulnerable to earthquakes. That is approximately 10,000 classrooms. In other words, about four and a half million Iranian children and adolescents sit and study under unsafe roofs. To address this concern, 6,000 billion tomans in credit is needed, which the regime cannot provide.

More than one-third of our country’s population lives in dilapidated urban areas that have no safety against earthquakes exceeding 5 on the Richter scale.

The situation is not much better for more than 20 million rural residents. Only 42 percent of rural homes have been reinforced against earthquakes, and the rest have been left as is due to rural residents’ inability to repay bank loans or provide collateral.

This is Iran, and Islamic Republic officials lack the opportunity and ability to protect the lives of this land’s people against earthquakes. Because they must provide the budget for Hezbollah in Lebanon and build roads, houses, schools, and parks in that country. The Holy Shrines in Iraq must constantly be rebuilt with gilded domes. Maintaining power in the hands of people like Assad in Syria also requires enormous budgets that Islamic Republic officials must provide.

One item among the burdens weighing on these officials’ shoulders is the credit for reconstructing the Holy Shrines in Iraq, to which they have committed to allocating the equivalent of 3,000 billion tomans over the next 6 years. That is half the credit needed to reinforce all dilapidated classrooms in our country.

Another item is providing the budget for Hezbollah in Lebanon, which according to speculation by a French newspaper is between 200 to 500 million dollars annually.

This is Iran, and its people on a land that has torn its collar to swallow injustice still tremble.