Under Media Blackout 12 Arab farmers Killed by Iranian Forces in Swiseh village

European Ahwazi Human Rights Organization has learnt that Iran has killed 12 Arab farmers after they resisted confiscation of their land in Swiseh village.

Land confiscation by government is a source of tension between Ahwazis and Iran. Government forces many Arab farmers to leave their land without any or little compensations.


100 Ahwazi families are being displaced from their land since March 2011 alone where 2 people were killed and 17 others injured in Fallahiya city. Government is using Arab lands for sugar cane projects, building new settlements for Persians and military purposes.

While new towns supplied with facilities such as electricity, gas, and healthy water are being built for immigrants Persians 500,000 Arabs live in shanty towns which resemble the townships of apartheid South Africa.


While Ahwazi ancestral lands produce over 4.5 million barrels of oil daily- 90% of total Iranian oil production- indigenous Ahwazi-Arabs live in abject poverty and receive no part of the billions of dollars in annual revenue generated by this resource. He brought to light the systematic political exclusion of the Awazi Arabs and their resulting absence from Iranian governance structures, including those governing the extraction of resources and distribution of benefits.