Three Months After Shiraz Floods; Four Former Mayors Found Culpable; Judiciary Rejected Role of Other Institutions

The judicial system of Fars Province has found four former mayors of Shiraz equally responsible for the flooding in Farvardin in the city and the deaths of over 20 people.

Heydar Asiyabi, the General and Revolutionary Prosecutor of Fars Province, announced: “Given the receipt of the expert committee’s opinion, four mayors from different periods of Shiraz have each been found 25% culpable, and the expert committee’s opinion is in the notification stage.”

On the fifth day of Farvardin 1398, a sudden flood in Shiraz in the Quran Gate area resulted in the deaths of 21 people and injuries to 119 people. At the time, some criticized that filling the drainage channel near the Quran Gate caused this disaster.

However, on Wednesday, the Fars Prosecutor’s Office did not hold other agencies responsible for the flood.

This comes despite the fact that the Truth-Finding Committee of Shiraz City Council previously found, in addition to the Municipality, other executive organizations and agencies including the governorate, Ministry of Energy, General Directorate of Roads and Urbanism, Planning and Budget Organization, Law Enforcement Forces, General Directorate of Natural Resources, General Directorate of Meteorology, and others, responsible for the Shiraz flood to varying degrees.

U.S. officials have repeatedly warned of mismanagement of Iran’s natural resources and unnecessary and unplanned dam construction aimed at filling the pockets of corrupt officials of the Islamic Republic regime, and cited it as one of the main factors behind the emergence of various environmental crises, including devastating floods and unprecedented droughts.

Mike Pompeo, U.S. Secretary of State, in Ordibehesht month of last year, while expressing support for the Iranian people, said that “we are witnessing financial and environmental crises in Iran. Corruption has gripped the country. The regime is stealing from its own people.”

Brian Hook, U.S. Special Representative for Iran Affairs, also pointed out that six hundred dams have been built in Iran since the revolution “without any environmental assessment,” stating that the Islamic Republic regime has mismanaged and destroyed the country’s water resources over the past forty years.

Source: Voice of America