According to results of the public opinion poll conducted by Ahwaz Municipality, 97% of Ahwaz people would leave the province if they had to opportunity due to government’s negligence of their needs. Abdul Hussain Moqtdaie, former Governor of Ahwaz, denied that the reason behind Ahwazi migration is the unprecedented dust waves sweeping this province.
Ahwaz Bagh Malek’s MP, Hidayatullah Khademi said that the racist and exclusion policy of the regime and lack of basic needs led to the mass departure of prosperous from the region, while poor have stayed suffering diseases and problems. He added that the demographic fabric of the region is changing because of this disturbing mass immigration from the province.
According to Zamaneh radio, representatives of the region boycotted a meeting held by Masuma Ebtikar, Iranian President’s advisor for Environmental Affairs during her visit to Ahwaz, considering that the regime is looking at the province from a security perspective rather than development. Majid Nasseri Nejad, President of Ahwaz Representatives Association said that they boycotted the meeting in protest against conditions in the province, adding that people are fleeing the city; no one is staying; only merchants that never miss any opportunity to achieve personal gains.
Ahwaz Governor’s advisor for political and social affairs stated that investment opportunities provided by the regime to investors from abroad led to a reverse migration from outside the province.
The Ahwaz province witnessed harsh waves of sand storms during the past few years that severed the situation and led to environmental damage that cannot be repaired. Some believe that this change resulted from the government’s policies of building dams on rivers flowing towards Ahwaz, such as Karkheh Dam. By doing so, the government aimed at transferring water to cities in central Iran, which has led to desertification, drought, and widespread destruction of palm farms.
The regime took advantage of these environmental conditions to justify the Ahwaz Arabs migration from the region, making this matter as a cover to hide its racist policy of systematic displacement against them. Human Rights Organization of Ahwaz published a report saying that it has received a classified document indicating that the Iranian regime is intended to change the demographic fabric of Arab-inhabited terrains. This document, entitled “comprehensive plan for sustainable development in Khuzestan,” confirmed the necessity of changing the demography of Ahwaz through a reverse mass migration from other territories into this province, which seems the least costly way in the long run.
Although Ahwaz is the second Iranian province in terms of gross local production, and the most important in natural resources, especially oil and gas, the regime’s policies have made this province suffer the highest unemployment rate in Iran, which amounted to 25%.
In fact, this policy is one of a series of other Iranian documented policies against Ahwaz people. The most prominent one was issued in April 2005 by Director of Mohammad Khatami’s office, former Iranian president, and known at that time as Abtahi’s document that provoked a popular Ahwazi revolution against this tyrant regime.
Quoted from Zamaneh Radio
Source: Zamaneh Radio
