Days of protests against dust storms, power failures and government mismanagement in one of Iran’s most oil-rich cities subsided on Sunday after security forces declared all demonstrations illegal.
Residents of Ahvaz, a city with a majority Arab population near the border with Iraq, had been protesting for five days in increasingly large gatherings, cellphone video clips shared on social media show.
The region around Ahvaz is a center of oil production in Iran, and since the lifting of sanctions, Iran’s government has been hoping for foreign investment to flow into the area to update refineries and power stations — and to fix deepening ecological problems.
The cellphone clips show protesters calling for the resignation of the local governor. As the number of demonstrators grew, the demands started to include a call for top officials from the capital, Tehran, to come to Ahvaz to see the problems for themselves.
Demonstrators can also be heard shouting “unemployment, unemployment,” another big problem in the region, and urging their countrypeople to offer assistance: “Iranian compatriots, help us, help us.”
In the weeks before the demonstrations, Ahvaz was hit by large dust storms. Rain turned the dust into mud, which caused power stations to stop working.
Oil production was also affected, with the Iranian Ministry of Petroleum reporting that production had temporarily fallen by 700,000 barrels a day.
The city is also wrestling with longer-term environmental challenges. Ahvaz, home to about 1 million people, is surrounded by petrochemical factories that emit pollutants on a large scale.
A 15-year drought, in combination with poorly planned dam building, has led to local marshes drying up, increasing the level of dust particles in the air to record highs. The WHO in 2015 said that Ahvaz was the most polluted city in the world.
State television, dominated by hardliners, at first highlighted the protests, seemingly to place the moderate government of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in a complicated position.
One local reporter even presented the news wearing a protective mask against air pollution in protest. However, after the numbers of protesters started increasing, the official media fell silent.
On Saturday, police issued a statement calling on people to refrain from “illegal gatherings,” warning that they would be “confronted” if they took part.
Witnesses later reported the presence of riot police on the streets of Ahvaz.
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