US State Department: Regime imprisons innocent environmental activists instead of corrupt officials
Referring to Iran's environmental problems over the past 41 years of Iranian rule, the US State Department announced that the regime is imprisoning innocent environmental activists instead of corrupt officials.
The US State Department's Persian account wrote in a tweet: "For forty-one years, the Iranian regime has neglected the country's environment and failed to address the problems of water shortages and severe air pollution; problems that cause serious illness or death for thousands of Iranians every year."
The message continues, "However, the regime imprisons innocent environmental activists instead of corrupt officials."
The Islamic Republic has increased pressure on environmental activists in recent years. Most recently, the five-year prison sentence of Chia Mohammadi, a Sanandaj resident and environmental activist, which was previously issued by the Revolutionary Court, was increased to six years by the Court of Appeal.
In recent days, Iran has been faced with the suspicious death of thousands of migratory birds in the Miankaleh Wetland, and conflicting news about the main cause of the death of these birds continues.
This comes at a time when several environmental activists have been imprisoned in Iran for months. Hooman Jokar, Taher Ghadirian, Morad Tahbaz, Sepideh Kashani, Niloufar Bayani, Amirhossein Khaleghi, Sam Rajabi, and Abdolreza Koohpayeh are among the environmental activists detained in Iran. Pouria Sepahvand, an expert at the Parsian Heritage Wildlife Institute, was also arrested in February of last year.
Recently, hearings on the case of environmental activists were held in Branch 15 of the Revolutionary Court, presided over by Judge Salavati, and these activists were sentenced to 4 to 10 years in prison on charges of "spying on military centers."
The environmental crisis in Iran has long attracted the attention of the international community. US officials have also repeatedly warned about the mismanagement of Iran's natural resources, widespread deforestation, and unnecessary and unplanned dam construction aimed at lining the pockets of corrupt officials of the Islamic Republic regime, and have cited it as one of the main factors in the emergence of various environmental crises, including devastating floods and unprecedented droughts.
Previously, Brian Hook, the US Special Representative for Iran, had referred to environmental problems in Iran and said that after the revolution, 600 dams had been built in Iran "without any environmental assessment," and had stated that the Islamic Republic regime had destroyed the country's water resources through mismanagement over the past forty years.
Source: Voice of America
