New wave of
demonstrations in Iranian Azerbaijan suppressed by riot police
av Association for Defence
of Azerbaijani Political Prisoners in Iran (ADAPP) kl. den 22 maj 2012 kl. 06:58 ·
21 May 2012
A new wave of
mass demonstrations to save Lake Urmia was violently
suppressed by Iranian security forces and riot police in streets of Azerbaijani
cities of Iran such as Tabriz, Urmia, Marand, Maraga and Miyana. The riot police and security forces used tear-gas
and batons to disperse the crowed, arresting scores
of protesters. In the city of Urmia, capital of West
Azerbaijan province, tens of detainees were led to the police cars and
paddy-wagons and transferred to unknown locations, eyewitnesses said.
Protesters were
chanting slogans in Azerbaijani-Turkish like “Long live Azerbaijan”, “Lake Urmia is dying; the Majlis
[Iranian Parliament] ordered its execution” and, “Let us cry, so that with our
tears we replenish Lake Urmia.”
According to the
ADAPP sources, Afsane Toghir,
the secretary of Association of Azerbaijani Studies in Tabriz University and
Azerbaijani civil rights activists Akbar Muhajir, Hasan Mirzakhani and Muhammad Iskandarzade were among those arrested. A number of
Azerbaijani activists such as Hussein Ahmadian and
journalist Ali Hamed Iman
were arrested a day before the protests.
The mass
protests to save Lake Urmia took place on the sixth
anniversary of May 2006 demonstrations in Azerbaijan, in which tens of
protesters were killed and thousands were arrested.
The
predominantly Azerbaijani-populated cities of Iran are being confronted by a
pending environmental catastrophe that will result in the drying-out of Lake Urmia, which is situated between West Azerbaijan and East
Azerbaijan provinces, and is one of the largest salt lakes in the world.
In recent years,
the Iranian government has built dams on more than 20 tributaries feeding into
the lake. Environmental organizations and experts claim that this damming,
coupled with an environmentally damaging bridge linking the cities of Urmia and Tabriz, has reduced the flow of water into and
within Lake Urmia, causing the majority of the lake
to evaporate.
The
deterioration of Lake Urmia impacts 13 million local
inhabitants, as well as the nations of Azerbaijan, Turkey, Iraq, and Armenia.
According to Esmail Kahrom,
a professor of environmental sciences at the University of Tehran, if Lake Urmia dries up, “six to eight cities will be totally
destroyed, covered by layers and layers of salt."
Over the past three
years, peaceful protests against the government’s policy over Lake Urmia crisis have been harshly cracked down by Iranian
forces.
YouTube Videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bvsMQYPJ1w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmUUBVZuCck
Association for Defence of Azerbaijani Political Prisoners in Iran (ADAPP)
E:
info.adapp@gmail.com
Website: http://www.adapp.info