Iran-HRM – Amnesty International called on the Iranian authorities to immediately stop the killing and arrest of protesters in Khuzestan and to recognize the right of the people to freedom of expression and peaceful protests. In a report today, Amnesty International said security forces had killed at least eight protesters and bystanders, including a teenage boy, since protests began. Amnesty identified the …

Iran-HRM – Water protests in Iran extended into an eighth day on July 22, while the state security forces used deadly force to crack down on protesters. The protests continued in cities such as Bushehr, Mahshahr, Behbahan, Izeh, Ahvaz and other cities in Khuzestan province. Demonstrations in support of the people of Khuzestan also took place in cities such as Aligudarz in Lorestan …

CHRI —With security forces in Iran attacking and killing protesters in Khuzestan Province, the Iranian authorities are once again demonstrating complete disregard for the law, life, and all international standards of policing, the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) said in a statement today. CHRI condemns in the strongest terms the security forces’ use of deadly and excessive force to …

Al-Monitor – The Iranian government cut internet access in the past week during protests in an impoverished province, according to an internet watchdog. There were disruptions to internet access on cellphones from July 15-20, and the blockage knocked out approximately 3% to 4% of mobile data in Iran, the London-based NetBlocks announced Wednesday. The group said there were “widespread user reports of …

Al-Monitor – Iran’s supreme leader praised the people of Khuzestan province Friday in an apparent response to continuing protests in the impoverished region.  “The people of Khuzestan are very loyal,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a tweet.  Oil-rich Khuzestan province in Iran’s southwest has been the site in recent days of major protests against a lack of clean drinking water. Residents of the region, …

Al-Monitor – The disruption of water supply has long been a potential catalyst for conflict or instability in the arid Middle East. But it’s never been as prominent a risk as it is now. Nile dam deadlock: Egypt looks to China to help Ethiopia announced July 19 that it had completed this year’s filling of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), which it …

Al-Arabia – Protests sparked by a water crisis in Iran’s southwestern Khuzestan province continued for an eighth consecutive night on Thursday, spreading to the neighboring Lorestan province, videos posted on social media showed. The protests, which began on July 15, were initially concentrated in Arab majority areas in oil-rich Khuzestan, which is home to ethnic Arabs who have long complained of …

Iranwire – Protests and public unrest over the water crisis in Khuzestan have now run for a full week. On Thursday night, demonstrations also took place in several other provinces including Lorestan, Bushehr and Isfahan. Numerous videos that emerged last night showed the bloodied body of a young man  shot dead in Aligudarz, the capital of Lorestan province. In one video he …

Iranwire – In the past week at least 350 people have been detained in seven Iranian cities during the mass protests sparked by the chronic water crisis in Khuzestan, according to a UK-based human rights activist.   London-based researcher Karim Dahimi told IranWire that the number of detentions seems to have been especially high in the Khuzestani cities of Ramshir, …

Iranwire – “Today, these issues of the climate crisis, the water crisis, the energy crisis, global warming crisis, are raised as the principal issues of humanity. But they are not. The main problems of humanity are spirituality and morality; issues of men and women, the status of women, the dignity of women in society. These are the real crisis.” Ali …