New Crime of Systematic Expropriation: Iranian Authorities Confiscate 31 Hectares of Agricultural Land in Al-Sabla Village, Al-Busaiteen, Amid Marginalization and Demographic Change Policies
The Alahwazi Organization for Human Rights (A.O.H.R) strongly condemns the forced expropriation and land confiscation policies pursued by the Iranian authorities against Arab Ahwazi citizens in the region, which aim to strip indigenous people of their properties and sole source of livelihood.
According to reliable field and human rights reports received by the organization, the Revolutionary Court in Maysan city issued an unjust ruling confiscating approximately 31 hectares of fertile agricultural land in Al-Sabla village, affiliated with Al-Busaiteen city, under flimsy pretexts known as “national lands”.
Reports and residents confirm that these lands are private property and a historical inheritance passed down by Ahwazi families from their ancestors generation after generation, used for decades for agriculture, securing daily living needs, and ensuring economic stability. Executing these expropriation procedures in front of landowners represents an arbitrary decision depriving families of their food and livelihood security, pushing them toward further poverty and systematic unemployment amid ongoing economic tightening.
Human Rights Qualification and Strategic Dimensions:
The Alahwazi Organization for Human Rights places this violation within two prominent legal and international frameworks:
* Necropolitics / Policies of Lethal Subjugation:
Manifested in using arbitrary confiscation and expropriation as tools to deprive the indigenous population of their means of survival, food security, and livelihood stability, imposing severe conditions that forcibly push them toward displacement.
* Necroecology / Systematic Environmental Destruction:
Reflected in the deliberate disabling of fertile agricultural lands and depriving the local community of managing, utilizing, and sustaining their livelihood from their natural environment, leading to the degradation of the rural ecological and agricultural fabric.
Furthermore, the area of Al-Sabla village holds significant geographical importance and extreme sensitivity due to its proximity to the Iraqi border. Field data points to serious concerns that these confiscations could be exploited to serve military and security projects or demographic engineering operations that threaten the Arab social and demographic fabric in border regions.
Demands:
* The immediate halt of agricultural land confiscation decisions in Al-Sabla village (Al-Busaiteen) and the revocation of the unjust Revolutionary Court rulings against their rightful owners.
* An immediate end to livelihood-threatening and demographic engineering policies targeting the private property of Arab indigenous populations.
* Urging the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Iran and international bodies to urgently intervene to document these violations and press Tehran to stop land and property seizures in Ahwaz.
