'A hunger revolution': Inside the massive protests sweeping Iran
www.abc.net.au
Protests spread from the capital Tehran to other cities and across demographics, with people demanding Iran's leaders end the country's clerical rule and hold free elections.

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Merchants from Iran’s bazaars played a key role in the 1979 Islamic Revolution, which brought Iran’s clerics to power.

Now they may have started a movement to depose those rulers because many of the protesters want more than economic relief.

Some told the ABC they were angry about extensive corruption and decades of mismanagement and wanted an entirely new system of government.

“This anger comes from the sense that the country has been abandoned, as if no-one intends to stop the collapse, the instability, or the soaring prices,” Babak* (not their real name) told the ABC.

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  • DaddleDew@lemmy.worldEnglish
    591·
    17 hours ago

    They’re about to run out of drinking water and might even have to evacuate Teheran because of it.

    While the surrounding countries invested in their water supplies and won’t be affected anywhere as badly by the drying conditions, the Iranian government spent all its resources in their nuclear and missile programs and just hoped that the decades long trend in reducing rainfall would reverse. It didn’t.

    They won’t be able to ignore it any further when people start dying. But it will be too late by then.

    • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
      36·
      18 hours ago

      the Iranian government spent all its resources in their nuclear and missile programs and just hoped that the decade long tend in reducing rainfall would reverse. It didn’t.

      They definitely mismanaged the crisis, but this is a false dichotomy. In the past few decades Iran has been investing into its water infrastructure; it’s just that their investment priorities weren’t “make sure Iran will be habitable by 2050.” This is corruption and lack of political will, not a lack of funds.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
      235·
      17 hours ago

      While the surrounding countries invested in their water supplies

      Curiously, the investment probably needed to be in more advanced anti-aircraft defenses.

      The war lasted 12 days. The environmental impact on Iran may last decades

      Damage to energy infrastructure can also have knock-on effects by disrupting water treatment and delivery systems, Weir said.

      Attacking infrastructure that affects the survival of a population is prohibited under the Geneva convention. “There are rules of engagement,” said Ahmad Rafay Alam, an environmental lawyer and activist. “You’re supposed to target military installations and other parties in the armed conflict. You’re supposed to avoid civilians. You’re supposed to avoid excessive use of force, and you’re supposed to avoid targeting civilian infrastructure or infrastructure that can impact civilian populations.”

      Disruption of Iran’s energy grid, bombardments shattering pipe networks, and the decades-long sanctions prohibiting the country’s ability to import supplies for repairs (cement alone has seen double-digit price spikes for years), have undermined the country’s capacity for storing and pumping potable water since the '79 Revolution.

      They won’t be able to ignore it any further when people start dying.

      People have already died and they’ll continue to die. This is a nation fully under siege by its neighbors and its foreign adversaries. Absent intervention by an opposition government, we’ll see Iran’s population accelerated into the same crises created in Palestine, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Pakistan.