After the spread of the water crisis in provinces of Khuzestan and Gilan and the cities where thirsty people poured into the streets in temperatures above 45 degrees Celsius, on the evening of Monday, July 31, the people of Divandarreh gathered and demonstrated in front of governor office and city water department, protesting several days of water shortage. Protesters lit fires and blocked streets and shouted slogans against the regime. Repressive security forces clashed with protesters and fired tear gas at the demonstrators who wanted drinking water. Several civilians were injured by the security forces.
On July 22, Reza Arianpur, a member of the Majlis (parliament) referred to the explosive conditions of the society in the waterless summer and said, “Golestan province is currently in the worst drinking water situation, and every day we witness the reports and protests of people from different urban and rural areas of the province, especially the eastern cities of the province. We have been cut off from drinking water for several days”.
Gholamreza Montazeri, another member of the parliament, had warned against “turning water tension into social tension.”
The anger of the people following the crisis of water outage in the scorching summer is not limited to Divandarreh and a few other cities of provinces.
On March 27, Eghtesaad 24, a state-run website, warned, “300 cities are under water stress and more than 8,000 villages are supplied with water by tankers. Even experts in watershed management and hydrogeology have warned about water bankruptcy.”
On July 28, the state-run Entekhab newspaper wrote, “The amount of negative water balance in Isfahan is 13 billion cubic meters, which is equivalent to 20 times the size of Zayandeh Rud river. There are other provinces whose negative balance is more than Isfahan. In Fars province, which has a negative balance of 15 billion cubic meters, we have recorded the world’s largest sinkhole with 54 centimeters per year. Fars province has the potential to collapse all at once.”
Another fact is that the water crisis, with all severity, is one of the deadly crises facing the people of Iran. And during the two years Ebrahim Raisi has been president, crises have intensified severalfold.
On July 24, Mohammad Hassan Asafari, a member of the parliament, attacked Raisi and said, “Mr. Dr. Raisi, we do not understand what is going on in your government, and who is making decisions… You are not helping the farmers, and day by day you are making the condition tighter and harder for them. What are these problematic policies implemented by this government? So, the question after these repeated mistakes is, upon what hopes did we come to vote for this government.”
On August 1, the state-run Hammihan newspaper, wrote, “In two days, we will enter the third year of the new presidential term. Let’s analyze fairly, two years ago on this day, what prediction would you have presented of Iranian society in the next two years?”
Then, referring to the crisis of inflation, housing, stock market, unemployment and other crises that plagued the system, he warned, “We hope the management of affairs will change before it is too late”.
Beyond complaining about the failure of the regime’s president to curb inflation and the crisis due to rising prices of bread and lack of water and housing, officials and state-run media are warning about the failure of the regime’s policy and strategy to prevent its downfall. The presidency of Raisi that was supposed to guarantee the survival of the regime by stifling the uprising. Now the insiders of the regime complain about the failure of the Raisi project, fearful that the pent-up anger of the masses is slowly driving the country toward another nationwide uprising, one that can potentially sweep away the regime.