Edited by Shapour Suren-Pahlav - A number of Iranian non-governmental organisations (NGOs)
affiliated to various entities have called on the Islamic
Regime’s authorities to delay the commissioning of
Sivand Dam which is posing a threat to the pre-Islamic
Iranian heritage in Bolaghi Valley, Fars province.
The NGOs which include the Association of Culture of Iran
Territory (Afraz), Association of Arya of the Medical
Faculty of Tehran University, Association of Graduates of
Neishabor Foundation (Tehran), Kaveh Ahangar, Kohandej (Hamedan),
Tufa (Shushtar), Mehr-Ayeen (Ramhormoz), Centre for
Development of Greater Iran, Court of Love (Bargah-e Mehr)
in Isfahan, and Pars Youth Association in Shiraz. The NGO
spokeswoman said in a statement that filling the dam’s
reservoir will threaten the historical Bolaghi Valley as
well as cultural heritage sites in the vicinity of the
recently-built dam.
“The rise in humidity after the commissioning of the dam
will also be harmful for Pasargadae monuments,“ said a
statement released by the NGOs.
They called on Iran’s Cultural Heritage and Tourism
Organisation to oblige the regime’s Ministry of Energy
to stop filling the dam.
They cited the Egyptian dam at Aswan for which UNESCO
dispatched experts and about 70 teams of archaeologists to
document the cultural heritage and called on ICHTO to put
pressure on the Ministry of Energy to implement similar
plan at Bolaghi Valley.
The statement said it is unacceptable to conduct a trial
and error approach in dealing with cultural heritage
sites.
Since 1979 and rise of Islamic regime to power, pre-Islamic
Iranian cultural heritage is facing almost unquantifiable
damages. There are currently 85 dams under construction
across Iran, part of a programme that the Islamic regime
promotes in the name of modernisation. What has emerged
thus far may just be the tip of the iceberg as the clerics
in power seem set to obliterate the entire pre-Islamic
Iranian cultural heritage.
This cultural cleansing by the fundamentalist regime in Tehran has
received no media coverage in the West.
