TEHRAN — In a phone call with the chief justice of Khuzestan province on Sunday, Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejei ordered Sadegh Moradi to release protesters detained at Khuzestan province.

Ejei asked the chief justice to provide the ground for the immediate release of those who have been detained during the recent events in the province solely for the sake of protest.

Protests erupted in several cities of the oil-rich province of Khuzestan in recent days. Demonstrators called on local authorities to release waters stored behind the numerous dams on rivers to flow into plains and marshes in Khuzestan, where hundreds of thousands of people make a living by tilling lands and raising water buffaloes and dairy cows among other livestock.

The local authorities, however, complain that the region is suffering from a rarely seen drought that caused them to reduce the waters flowing into the province.

Several anti-revolution groups coupled with certain foreign countries have been provoking protests in Khuzestan over shortage of water mostly originating from droughts and cultivation of paddy fields in upstream and provinces neighboring Khuzestan.

Ejei orders fast review of November 2019 cases

The judiciary chief has also instructed Gholamhossein Esmaili, a top judiciary official, and Ali Elghasi, Tehran’s prosecutor, to review the cases of those arrested during the November 2019 riots so that those with legal conditions of parole or pardon could be pardoned, be forgiven or released.

The head of the judiciary instructed the Tehran prosecutor to urgently review the cases of such convicts, and if they had behaved well during the sentence and the officials were assured that they would not commit a crime if released, they would be released on parole and on the list of amnesty recipients.
 

SA/PA