Construction of a Hotel, Just 20-meters Away from 2500-Years-Old Apadana Palace

LONDON, (CAIS) -- A permit has been issued by Khuzestan Cultural Heritage, Tourism and Handicrafts Department (KCHTHD) to construct a three storey hotel, just 20 meters away from the Achaemenid Apadana palace in Susa, said Mojtaba Gahestuni, the spokesman for the Khuzestan’s Friends of the Cultural Heritage Association (Tariana).

The license for constructing 'Amirzargar' hotel was issued to a private owner by 'Sadeq Mohammadi' the director of KCHTHD.

Tariana in an official letter to KCHTHD demanded the license to be revoked immediately.

The Apadana Palace has already been threatened by the construction of a school on its perimeter, but the construction of this hotel will definitely ensures the destruction of this important historical site in the long term.

In early January, vandals also smashed remaining column bases at Apadana, and the Old-Persian cuneiform inscriptions on the bases were obliterated.

The Apadana Palace is also being threatened by the construction of a preparatory school on its perimeter. In early December 2007, Tariana sent letters to the regime’s president Mahmud Ahmadinejad, asking him put a stop to the project – but the letter not so surprisingly was ignored, and destruction continued.

These crimes against Iranian national heritage are being carried out in accordance with the Islamic regime's de-Iranianisation policy. Issuing such a permit is either done in accordance with such policy, or the KCHTHD's authorities have received bribes to issue the devastating permit, or both and 'kill two birds, with one stone'.

Since the rise of theocratic-totalitarian regime to power in 1979, the anti-Iranian leaders of the Islamic regime have dedicated significant resources to restructuring Iranian culture, values and sense of national identity, and as the result many pre-Islamic historical and archaeological sites have been devastated. In general, the regime has been trying to destroy, and erase all pre-Islamic cultural heritage from the consciousness of the Iranians at any cost, in favour of Islamic culture and the Islamic way of life.

In addition, in Islamic Iran the criteria of choosing executive figures and occupying managerial positions including ICHTHO are not based on their level of education or expertise, but based on their level of devotion to the regime, which the majority of them are corrupt individuals*. These corrupt authorities along with the ruling clerics and their families (in Persian language known as āqā-zādegān) have managed to accumulate unheard of wealth through corruption, bribery and embezzlement, and live in opulence and luxury at the expense of the Iranian nation and Iranian heritage.

* Since 1979, Islamic Iran ranks 88 out of 158 countries on the "Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index" (CPI) with a CPI score of 2.9 (a scale of 0 – 10 with 0 being the most corrupt). In real terms Islamic regime made bribery another form of income supplement for the Iranian society, in order to disintegrate traditional values and moralities among Iranian people, to pave the way for destruction of Iran. Corruption encouraged at every level, which have nowadays have become an accepted part of every day life - from gifting the postman to make sure one’s mail is delivered to major corruption on the international level in the oil and its related industries.

Original News bulletin published in Persian by CHN, and translated and modified by CAIS

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