ژورنال سایت خبری سیاسی ژورنال
PDF-English Journal-6 July 2025-No17
Mohammad Mohammadi, managing director of Ilam Province’s Water and Wastewater Company, has once again pledged to supply water for the Arbaeen pilgrims* this year, just as he did the last time. “We’re constructing an 11.5-kilometre pipeline to deliver water to the main Arbaeen car park at the Mehran border,” he stated.
But it is the second half of his title—wastewater director—that warrants attention. Mohammadi’s promise is not about public service. It is an attempt to salvage the tattered legitimacy of the Islamic Republic, to stitch a veil of dignity onto a regime that has long since lost it. The mass mobilisation of this famished and broken human caravan has nothing to do with religion. It is political theatre—propaganda disguised as piety. The regime hopes to portray itself as backed by the masses, to feign a bond between an “Islamic society” and its supposedly god-given rulers.
To that end, it is willing to starve the country. While millions have suffered from power cuts under searing heat, while bread, water, and gas are held hostage to fund the regime’s nuclear ambitions, while Iran’s poor are pushed into destitution and deprived of healthcare, the Islamic Republic prioritises Arbaeen. They pour public money into regional proxy forces, churn out ballistic missiles, and funnel billions into banks swollen with the plundered savings of ordinary Iranians.
Let us not forget: just last year, Majid Mirahmadi, the head of the Arbaeen Committee, boasted that 285 million US Dollars of public funds were allocated for this pilgrimage.
And now, amid political turmoil eating away at the regime from within, it blows the trumpet of Arbaeen once again—desperately parading a line of disillusioned, cast-off souls as proof of its strength. But even they no longer believe this farce will achieve anything.
When the Islamic Republic can spend trillions just to cling to power, it gives the people all the more reason to reclaim what is theirs. Let us return to the streets with greater resolve, more organisation, and a broader united front. Our demands—for livelihoods, dignity, and justice—must be wrested from the jaws of those who have devoured our future.
*Shia Muslim pilgrimage to Karbala, Iraq, heavily supported by the Iranian regime
English journal about the current situation in Iran
Editor-in-Chief: Keyvan Javid
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E-mail: keyvan.javid1@gmail.com
Editor: Patty Debonitas
