Protests by Residents of Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari Against Water Shortage Enter Second Day

He said that the people of this province in many cities, villages, and even nomadic areas face drinking water problems, and “all plains of this province are in a critical and crisis-prohibited state,” but did not allude to governmental mismanagement in addressing the water situation of this province.

The representative of four districts from Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province, however, subsequently threatened that “the people of this province will not allow the drilling of a single meter of tunnel for water transfer.”

Officials of the Islamic Republic have consistently cited insufficient rainfall as the main reason for this situation in most parts of the country, but this is while the repeated warnings of environmental activists regarding the necessity of stopping rice cultivation in desert provinces and preventing unauthorized well digging and fixing corruption in the country’s water supply pipes continue to be ignored.

Unfulfilled promises by officials and their neglect of providing water to the people of Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari, since Sunday, have led to protests in this regard, and this is while Isfahan province also witnessed major protests in recent days against water mismanagement in the province.

Starting from November 8, Isfahan witnessed gatherings of farmers protesting the cut-off of water rights and the drying of the Zayanderud River. These protests gradually expanded with the support of other sections, until November 19, when the largest gathering with thousands of people from Isfahan was held. During this gathering, many people in the dry bed of the Zayanderud River chanted protest slogans.

During this summer, widespread protests were also held in Khuzestan focusing on the water shortage problem, which security forces violently suppressed. There is still no accurate count of the number of deaths and wounded from these suppressions.

Ali Akbar Mohammadi, the Minister of Power in Ibrahim Raisi’s government, had previously emphasized “the necessity of praying for rain,” and Vahid Niradi Pargali, the head of religious and cultural affairs at the Ministry of Power in Khuzestan province, in a letter addressed to a number of water and electricity managers in the province, reported “Engineer Mohammadi’s order, the Minister of Power, for the benefit of rain-bringing supplications (the 19th supplication from the Sahifah Sajjadiyyah).”