Iran Lethally Represses Nonviolent Anti-Regime Protests

(New York, N.Y.) — Iranian security forces are harshly retaliating against peaceful, widespread anti-regime demonstrations—now in their second week—over water shortages and deteriorating economic conditions. The protests began in the southwestern, oil-rich province of Khuzestan earlier this month as portions of the province are without water or electricity thanks to the regime’s reckless environmental policies and the worst drought in 50 years. As many as eight people are reported to have been killed in the protests to date, according to Amnesty International. Iranian security personnel reportedly utilized tear gas, water cannons, and live fire on crowds of Iranian citizens to quell the protests.

This latest repression continues Tehran’s bloody track record of human rights abuses against demonstrators. In November 2019, according to the U.S. State Department’s Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, Iranian forces killed at least 304 citizens protesting the nation’s major hike of oil prices, but an additional report estimated the death toll to be nearly 1,500.

A United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) resource, Iran’s War on Protesters: Death, Detention, and Darkness, provides an overview of the Iranian regime’s violent crushing of dissent by innocent civilians demonstrating against corruption and regime mismanagement.

Another UANI resource, Iran’s War on the Environment and Environmentalists, describes the Iranian regime’s disregard for the environment and oppression of environmentalists. Over the years, numerous environmental experts and activists have warned that Iran’s mishandling of water resources and agricultural and industrial malpractice have set the nation on an unsustainable, calamitous path. Rather than responding to protesters, activists, and experts by changing its harmful policies, the regime has brutalized those communities and persisted in its ruinous environmental policies. 

To read the UANI resource Iran’s War on Protesters: Death, Detention, and Darkness, please click here. 

To read the UANI resource Iran’s War on the Environment and Environmentalists, please click here. 

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