Iran arrests Kurdish activists protesting garbage fires near village

Iranian security on Thursday arrested five Kurdish activists protesting local authorities’ dumping and burning of waste next to a village in Kurdistan Province.

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Iranian security on Thursday arrested five Kurdish activists protesting local authorities’ dumping and burning of waste next to a village in Kurdistan Province.

Zaniyar Ibrahimi, Aziz Salihi, Mohammed Murad-Karami, Ali Suleimani, and Faruq Mahmoudi were named as the individuals arrested by security forces, all of whom are from the Iranian Kurdish (Rojhilati) city of Marivan (Mariwan), the Association for Human Rights in Kurdistan of Iran-Geneva (KMMK) reported on the day of the incident.

“These persons were protesting the digging of a large hole near Grdallan river by the authorities who are planning to use it as the dumping ground for Mariwan’s garbage where the waste is to be promptly burned,” said the Kurdish advocacy group in a statement released after the arrests.

The group of environmentalists staged the demonstration to bring attention to the toll that pollution caused by the fires would likely have on the surrounding river and grounds, as well as on the local population of a nearby village where the river is used as a source of fresh water for drinking and agriculture.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) intelligence organization has arrested at least 60 environmental activists across the country since January 2018, often accusing them of acting as spies. On Sunday, the prosecutor-general of Tehran changed the charges leveled at five of them to “corruption on earth,” a severe ruling that could land convicted individuals a death sentence.

In late August, four Iranian Kurdish environmentalists died while battling a forest fire caused by the bombardment of IRGC artillery.

Editing by John J. Catherine