Iran International
Promises by the government to deliver water to Iran’s Esfahan Province amid protests are fueling regional tensions between the wealthy region and its neighbors.
After a massive water protest Friday in the city of Esfahan, the capital of the province, its representatives in the parliament have demanded acceleration of government projects for transferring water from the neighboring province of Chahar Mahal and Bakhtiari.
Farmers in Esfahan Province have been protesting shortage of water for nearly two weeks now. On Friday thousands of residents of the provincial capital joined the farmers who have pitched tents in the dry bed of the city's Zayandeh Roud.
Authorities who blame this year's drought for the exacerbation of water shortage have kept promising to take action to resolve the long-standing problem and to compensate the farmers who have not been able to sow autumn crops.
The promises have not only failed to send the farmers and their supporters home, but have also given rise to dissatisfaction and protests elsewhere, namely the neighboring Chahar Mahal and Bakhtiari Province from where water should be diverted to Esfahan.
Videos posted on social media Sunday showed hundreds of people in the largely agricultural and less-developed Chahar Mahal and Bakhtiari marching Sunday in front of the Governor's Office in the provincial capital, Shahr-e Kord.
"No Water Can Be Taken from Chahar Mahal," protesters chanted in Shahr-e Kord and demanded the governor to respond to their calls. Protesters who have vowed to return Monday to continue their protest also chanted slogans against "cowardly authorities" and called on the people of neighboring Lorestan and Khuzestan provinces to support their cause.
The protest rally in Esfahan on Friday and Shahr-e Kord on Sunday are quite unique. This time, unlike any previous protests such as water crisis protests in Khuzestan in July, security forces did not visibly interfere and try to disperse the massive crowds. Also, for the very first time, the local state-run channels and the national news channel aired some live images of the demonstrations.
The recent water protests took place as many Iranians marked the second anniversary of the bloody November 2019 unrest. In 2019 protests that quickly spread across the country were heavy-handedly suppressed by the security forces who killed hundreds of unarmed people. After two years, no one has been accountable, and the protesters have been accused of serving foreign interests and destroying property.
The state media and hardliners this time have been referring to the protesters in Esfahan as "well-behaved". "Nobody called the protesters deviant and hostile this time," conservative Alef website noted Sunday in a commentary entitled "Lessons of the Protest Rally in Esfahan".
Many believe security forces are showing restraint for the fear of inciting a strong reaction by the people, still mourning the victims of the November 2019 protests. However, Journalist Hamid Mafi said in a Twitter post Sunday that satisfying 'the well-behaved' people of Esfahan at the cost of their neighbors could give rise to a series of protests in nearby provinces of Chahr Mahal and Bakhtiari, Lorestan, and Khuzestan. Such future protests will reveal the extent of the respect for the right to protest and authorities' tolerance, he wrote.
Jomhouri Eslami (Islamic Republic), a newspaper that was established by current Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei as its proprietor shortly after the 1979 Islamic revolution is now being run and edited by a non-partisan cleric Massih Mohajeri. His political loyalty rests with Khamenei although he has been at times accused by hardliners of supporting reformists and moderate elements.
In his editorial on Sunday, November 21, Jomhouri Eslami has argued that "seminaries have always been independent of governments in Iran and were funded by the people. It was this independence from the government that lent an extraordinary spiritual influence to Shiite clerics."
Writing in a manner critical of Khamenei without annoying him, the daily said that "in recent years" the seminaries have become dependent on the government, and this has harmed the clerics' credibility and undermined the seminaries' independence.
The editorial is in fact referring to the fact that shortly after Khamenei became Supreme Leader in 1989, he began to feed the seminaries with millions of dollars to purchase their loyalty. And he has been successful in doing so.
Now Jomhouri Eslami suggests that the government should cut-off its hefty budget for the seminaries to put an end to the divide between the seminaries and the people. Mohajeri, who is himself a cleric, insisted in the editorial that he is not against the clergy or seminaries. However, he pointed out that the money put at their disposal has waste on opulent buildings and other activities. "They spend a lot of money for non-religious matters that not only have no benefit for Islam, but are sometimes even against the interests of the Islamic regime," he said.
"Be brave and cut off their budget," the editorial told the government, adding that this is a financially difficult time, and the economy needs such a surgical approach to save the country.
During the past years, regime's critics and some media outlets in Iran as well as some prominent clerics have been criticizing the government for allocating large budgets to the seminaries. Ayatollah Abdollah Javadi-Amoli in January 2019 lashed out at the seminaries for being non-productive.
In the same year, reformist Eslahat News website wrote that the administration of former President Hassan Rouhani "allocated $27 million to seminaries only during the three months between late March and late June 2018."
Later it was revealed by investigative journalists with access to government information that the annual budget allocated to religious institutions including the seminaries was around $500 million per year at least in 2018 and 2019.
Regardless of the hefty budget allocated to powerful seminaries, Javadi-Amoli said that small seminaries offered more knowledge and insight to the people during the years before the government started to allocate million-dollar budgets. He added that luxurious seminaries which look like castles have nothing to offer to the public.
Some critics have charged that Khamenei who lacked the right religious qualifications when he became Supreme Leader and was looked down by senior clerics, has a grudge against the seminaries and has effectively ruined their reputation and those of top clerics by putting them on government payroll.