Thousands of residents of Borazjan, the center of Dashtestan County in Bushehr province, southern Iran, poured into the streets on Saturday, July 7, to protest “shortage” and “chaotic” distribution of water.
Chanting slogans against local authorities, the protesters assembled in the city’s main square.
While the people were demanding the Governor to come forward and promise to solve the problem, the Governor’s deputy along with the city’s Friday Prayer Leader tried to deliver a speech, but enraged residents forced them to flee.
Footage widely circulated in social media show that, despite the presence of hundreds of security forces, the enraged demonstrators did not allow the Friday Prayer leader, mid-ranking cleric, Hassan Mosleh to deliver a speech and he decided to quickly leave the site for his own safety.
Mosleh had earlier on Friday called upon the authorities to address the problem of water shortage.
“Either the Governor steps in, or we are going to raise Hell!” the protesters insisted.
The demonstration mirrored a recent similar rally in southwestern cities of Abadan and Khorramshahr where ten people have been arrested and 25 charged with “calling people to sedition” and “abusing popular demands”.
Borazjan’s local website, Fikr-e Shahr (City’s Thought) reported, “After days without water, thousands of people poured into the streets on Saturday evening.”
The enraged demonstrators thronged into the city’s main square for four hours, chanting slogans against “inefficiency” and “incompetence” of the local authorities.
“Our enemy is right here, it is not America as they [the Islamic Republic’s authorities] falsely say,” the furious protesters chanted.
Meanwhile, in an interview with Fikr-e Shahr website, the representative of Dashtestan to the Islamic Republic parliament, Mohammad Baqir Sa’adat, has accused the county’s authorities of incompetence and procrastination, affirming, “People’s anger is justified. They are even entitled to insult the authorities.”
According to Sa’adat, “The main reasons behind the water shortage are more than thirty powerful pumps installed by the owners of several orchards in neighboring city of Kazeroon on the local river for illegal irrigation of their properties during dark hours of the night.
“The governor of Kazeroon, originally from the city’s suburbs, has so far ignored an official verdict for dismantling the powerful pumps,” Sa’adat has maintained.
Furthermore, Fikr-e Shahr has reported, “It is more than ten days that residents of several districts in Borazjan have not seen even a drop of water in the city’s pipes, while they are suffering from over fifty Celsius degree (122 Fahrenheit) heat.
In recent months people in many cities and agricultural areas have been protesting water shortages and environmental problems in Iran