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Provinces

Teen Arrested for Campaigning to Rescue Lake Urmia

September 13, 2022
OstanWire
1 min read
Aydin Jafari, 19, organized a small rally to call attention to the catastrophic drying-up of Iran's biggest saltwater lake
Aydin Jafari, 19, organized a small rally to call attention to the catastrophic drying-up of Iran's biggest saltwater lake

A 19-year-old in the city of Maku in Iran’s West Azerbaijan province has been arrested by the local intelligence department for highlighting the crisis at Lake Urmia.

Aydin Jafari held a small rally with fellow citizens on Saturday to call for action over the drying-up of the lake, which was once the biggest in the Middle East but has lost 85 percent of its volume in the last two decades mostly due to human activity.

Following the protest, an informed source told IranWire, Jafari and other participants received a telephone call summoning them to the city’s intelligence division.

Jafari himself was then arrested and taken to an as-yet unknown location. His family have yet to be informed of the charges against him.

The dire situation at Lake Urmia was mostly caused by dam construction, over-drawing of water for intensive agriculture, and short-sighted, centralized water management policies. Parts of the lake have been reduced to a dust bowl, with catastrophic effects for local wildlife and economies.

Successive governments have also taken a security-driven approach to environmental issues, arresting and jailing grassroots campaigners and environmental activists instead of drawing on their expertise.

In July this year, residents of Urmia and Naqadeh in West Azerbaijan also gathered to protest the drying-up of the lake. Dozens were arrested in both cities and security agents lined the streets of Tabriz, East Azerbaijan, in a bid to ensure the same could not occur there.

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