Iran Official Says Caspian Sea Level Has Dropped 1.5 Meters In 26 Years
The head of Iran’s meteorological center has said that the level of the Caspian inland sea has dropped by 1.5 meters (5 feet) in the past 26 years.
The head of Iran’s meteorological center has said that the level of the Caspian inland sea has dropped by 1.5 meters (5 feet) in the past 26 years.
Behzad Layeghi told local media that the sea level is dropping by an average of 6 cm per year, which is a significant change according to him. Iran has set up monitoring stations along its shorelines.
The Caspian is a salt water inland sea and the largest lake in the world.
Layeghi said that part of the reason is direct human activities such as river water use for other purposes, but the main cause for sea’s retreat of the Caspian is less precipitation. He added that Russian’s Volga River provides 85 percent of the water flow to the Caspian Sea.
The Iranian official said there could be many reasons for less precipitation in the Caspian basin but the most notable is climate change. He added that the huge loss of water can only be explained by climate change and direct human activities could not cause such a drastic change.
With speculation rampant on social media, Nour News, a website close to the Supreme National Security Council, denied any ploy by the government to soften up public opinion for a gasoline price increase. But almost immediately social media was full of rumors that the government was testing to see public reaction to a possible price increase. Drivers rushed to gas stations to fill their tanks, even if they did not any fuel.
Videos posted on social media Tuesday showed long queues in front of petrol stations. Distribution of cheaper, rationed petrol, which depends on the use of smart cards, had been stopped, with motorists obliged to buy unrationed gasoline at twice the price. By afternoon, authorities said they were working to resume rationed sales at designated stations.
Simultaneously, some electronic road signs were hacked to show messages like "Khamenei, Where is our gasoline?", a question addressed to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in Esfahan.
Another sign announced "free gasoline at Jamaran service station," referring to where the leader of the 1979 Islamic Revolution Ruhollah Khomeini lived before his death in 1989. During the 1979 revolution Khomeini was promising Iranians free electricity, water and a cash share of the oil export income.
The developments echoed July’s disruption to Iran’s railways, when information boards in train stations announced “Long delays due to cyberattack” and advertised the telephone number of Khamenei’s office. Similar attacks hit Mashhad and Tabriz airports in 2018.
But the disruption also comes as Iran enters the month of Aban, the anniversary of the mass protests of November 2019, when hundreds were killed, thousands arrested and the Internet largely shut down for a week.
No group claimed responsibility for the disruption to gas stations. Mehdi Mahdavi-Azad, a political commentator, told Iran International it was too early to say if this was an Israeli attack, but noted that both last November’s killing of nuclear scientist Mohsen Fahkrizadeh and April’s attack on the Natanz nuclear site, both widely attributed to Israel, had “serious repercussions” for Iran’s security services.
“Now even Mohsen Rezaei (former Revolutionary Guard commander) says there is a massive ‘bug’ and enemy infiltration in Iran’s security forces,” Mahdavi-Azad said.
Fars news agency, affiliated to the IRGC, attributed Tuesday’s gas-station disruption to "anti-revolutionaries" and opposition media.
The Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA), the first Iranian media outlet to report the attack Tuesday morning, published a picture showing the telephone number of Khamenei's office on a service station monitor. But the agency removed the report from all its portals and social media after a few minutes, claimed that it had itself been hacked.
Javaid Rehman, who has not been allowed to visit the country, pointed to live ammunition used during water protests in the south-western province of Khuzestan in July, when he said at least nine people including a minor were killed and others injured.
Many international human rights organizations, experts, the media and some governments have accused Iran of killing hundreds of protesters since late 2017, using military ammunition.
Zahra Ershadi, Iran’s deputy ambassador to the UN, said that such reports "only aim to use human rights as an instrument against other countries" and that Rehman had used information provided by "terrorist groups" and "sworn enemies of the Islamic Republic."
Ershradi said the appointment of a special rapporteur for Iran – since the 1980s one of few countries to be so investigated – had been an initiative of the West, especially Canada. Reflecting Iran’s common approach of alleging double standards, Eshradi cited recent discoveries in Canada of mass graves of indigenous childrenforced to attend residential schools.
Kazem Gharibabadi, Secretary-General of Iran’s Human Rights Office, said Rehman’s report was “ill-intentioned” and "a completely political and diversionary measure."
The Special Rapporteur’s report said Iran’s use of torture, reliance by courts on confessions, and “other fair trial violations” had led him to conclude that the use of the death penalty amounted to “arbitrary deprivation of life." Rehman cited Kurdish prisoner Amir-Hossein Hatami, who died after allegedly being beaten by prison officials, and the death of Shahin Naseri in custody in September. Naseri was a witness in the case of former cell-mate Navid Afkari, executed last year after alleging he had confessed under duress to murdering a security guard during protests.
“Arbitrary” grounds for a death sentence could turn the punishment into "a political tool,” Rahman argued. While a large number of executions in Iran are carried out for drug offences, Rehman criticized three vague security charges that can carry the death penalty: moharebeh (“waging war against God”), efsad-e fel-arz (“corruption on earth”) and baghy (“armed rebellion”).
The UN Special Rapporteur said he was disturbed by the sentencing of juveniles (under 18s) to death and said it was “imperative” for Iran to undertake criminal law and justice reforms beginning “most urgently” with a moratorium on the death penalty for juvenile offenders.
Rehman was appointed in 2018 as the third Special Rapporteur for Iran since the re-establishment of the mandate in 2011 after a nine-year interval. His mandate was extended by the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHCR) on March 24.
The first Special Rapporteur on Iran, Venezuelan Andrés Aguilar, lasted two years after he was appointed in 1984, resigning over Tehran’s refusal to cooperate. Reynaldo Galindo Pohl El Salvador, who took over, visited Iran three times between 1990 and 1992 but resigned in 1995 when barred from returning. He was succeeded by Maurice Copithorne, a Canadian lawyer, who was Special Rapporteur until 2002.
