June 20-2014
A number of activists were arrested in Tabriz and Urumiyeh last week for protesting lack of action to protect Lake Urumiyeh, according to local media reports.
Photographs have been posted on social media showing protesters denouncing “negligent officials” for failing to save the lake. Protesters called for tearing down some of the dams in the region to fill up Lake Urumiyeh. One key cause of the lake drying up is the use of dams to divert water to irrigation.
In recent days, a number of calls have gone out to rally the public to demonstrate in support of environmental action to save the dying lake.
The local website Oyan reported last Wednesday morning that some of those detained in Tabriz had been released.
The activists complain that the Rohani Administration has not honored his campaign promise to find a way to save the lake.
The administration has established a working group and it has met several times, but no concrete action plan has resulted.
In the last week of the Ahmadi-nejad Administration, it announced a plan to pipe water across the mountains from the Aras River, Iran’s boundary with Azerbaijan and Armenia, to Lake Urumiyeh. But the Rohani Administration started the review all over again.