The Alahwazi Organization for Human Rights (A.O.H.R) strongly condemns and denounces the systematic land confiscation and expropriation crime committed by the Iranian authorities against Arab Ahwazi citizens in the “Shakhe Al-Khan” area of Darkhoein.
According to reliable Ahwazi reports and sources received by the organization, the judicial authorities in the city of Fallahiyeh (Shadegan), backed by the city’s prosecutor Ghasem Deylami, issued a ruling establishing the ownership of 120 hectares of agricultural and historical lands in favor of the government of the “Islamic Republic of Iran” under the pretext of protecting them as “state lands” and preventing “illegal encroachment.”
The organization affirms, based on historical and local documents and sources, that the actual ownership and habitation of the area’s residents predate the establishment of the modern Iranian state and its current judicial institutions. The Bani Kaab tribe, led by Sheikh Salman Al-Kaabi, settled in the “Shakhe Al-Khan” area in March 1747 AD, and prior to that, it was administered by the Bani Khaled and Masha’sha’i tribes. Consequently, stripping indigenous people of their lands and vesting ownership in the state constitutes an arbitrary act bordering on settler-colonial displacement and the stripping of historical rights from native populations.
Field data reveals that the Iranian Ministry of Roads and Urban Development plans to execute development projects and construct new housing units and settlements on these confiscated lands to engineer demographic changes and alter the region’s population structure.
Human Rights Analysis and Qualification:
The Alahwazi Organization for Human Rights places these violations within two prominent legal and international frameworks:
1. Necropolitics / Policies of Lethal Subjugation:
This is manifested in depriving the residents of “Shakhe Al-Khan” village of basic life necessities such as safe drinking water, roads, and public facilities, leaving them to suffer from oil pollution caused by local oil installations (dating back to 1920 AD). This forces them to purchase water or use polluted agricultural irrigation channels. Stripping away their land after imposing severe living conditions clearly aims to forcibly push residents toward displacement and forced migration.
2. Necroecology / Systematic Environmental Destruction:
The authorities practice a pattern of organized environmental degradation in areas inhabited by Arab Ahwazis through oil pollution and the deprivation of water resources. Subsequently, environmentally damaged lands are seized and converted into government projects, constituting a flagrant violation of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, particularly the Right to Adequate Housing and a Healthy Environment.
Demands:
1. Immediate revocation of the confiscation rulings issued by the Fallahiyeh court and the restoration of lands and properties to their original owners unconditionally.
2. Immediate cessation of any settlement plans or projects aimed at demographic change in the region.
3. Urging the UN Special Rapporteur on adequate housing and the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran to document land seizures and systematic environmental destruction against the indigenous population in the region.
