Farmers turn back on Friday Prayer Leader in protest over drought and management of water supply
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Farmers have staged a protest at Friday prayers in Iran’s third city Isfahan.
The farmers, from the eastern part of Isfahan Province, turned their backs on the Friday Prayer Leader to show their discontent over Government failure to address a drought that has affected the central Iranian region for more than a decade.
They chanted, “Turning our backs to the enemy, our faces to the motherland.”
Even Fars, the outlet of the Revolutionary Guards, acknowledged the “large demonstrations” of the farmers. The article may indicate Guards’ acceptance and even support for protests that put pressure on the Rouhani Government.
Residents of Isfahan have complained that authorities are drying the Zayandeh Rood river by redirecting it to neighboring Yazd Province. Farmers have clashed with security forces.
The farmers’ protests against drought and water mismanagement have frequently led to violent clashes between demonstrators and security forces.
Local MP Hassan Kamran-Dastjerdi told Parliament last weekend that the Energy Ministry has “plundered” water from Varzaneh’s farmers by redirecting it to steel factories and refineries.
The Friday Prayer Leader, Mojtaba Mirdamadi, also acknowledged, “The farmers’ rights have been usurped for years through mismanagement and wrong decisions.” He urged them to be patient and “pray for more rain”.
Iranian authorities have also faced protests in other provinces as they try to contend with years of drought and claims of mismanagement which have led to the drying of rivers and lakes throughout the country.
Another Ahmadinejad Advisor Arrested
In another blow to the camp of former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, his former Chief of Staff Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, has been arrested.
The arrest comes days after the imprisonment of Ahmadinejad’s former Hamid Baghaei on a 15-year sentence for corruption.
See Iran Daily: Ahmadinejad’s Former Vice President Imprisoned
Rahim Mashaei had set fire to a copy of Baghaei’s verdict.
The regime has restricted the attempt of Ahmadinejad, President from 2005 to 2013, to return to front-line politics. It has sentenced several of his inner circle to prison terms and blocked him and Baghaei from standing in the 2017 Presidential election.
