Arrest of 60 Employees on Charges of 'Land Grabbing'

Gholamhossein Esmaeili, the head of the Tehran judiciary, has reported the arrest of 60 employees accused of 'land grabbing' this year, stating that during this period, 60 million square meters of land has been returned to the 'public treasury'. On Saturday, February 10, in an interview published by the 'Mizan' news agency, Esmaeili mentioned that the arrested individuals were employees of executive agencies. The senior judiciary official added that the judiciary has concluded that employees in organizations responsible for land and housing have cooperated with 'opportunistic' individuals. Esmaeili further stated that the judiciary is addressing the issue of 'land grabbing' by these 'opportunistic' individuals and is pursuing the 'violations' of the offending employees, aiming to 'cleanse' the departments of them. This judicial official has reported the judiciary's 'seriousness' in tackling the phenomenon of land grabbing in Iran, noting that this year, more than 60 million square meters of land has been returned to the 'public treasury'. Terms like 'land grabbing', 'sea grabbing', 'mountain grabbing', 'river grabbing', and 'desert grabbing' have gained significant traction in Iranian society and media in recent years. For years, individuals in Iran have been seizing land, sea, or mountains through 'influence', 'forgery', 'circumventing the law', and 'exploiting' religious issues, changing their usage. Some of these individuals are affiliated with power institutions in Iran; for instance, Masoumeh Ebtekar, head of the Environmental Organization, has stated that this organization has been threatened by 'influential land grabbers'. Ebtekar made this statement in December of this year without naming these individuals and 'influential' institutions, but she emphasized that the organization is serious about 'countering the seizure of national lands'. The phenomenon of land grabbing has become one of the examples of 'systematic corruption' in Iran, and despite claims by judicial and governmental institutions that they are seriously combating this phenomenon, they have not yet succeeded in eradicating it. In October of this year, Mohammad Ali Pourmokhtar, head of the Article 90 Commission of the Parliament, stated that some officials are 'behind the scenes' of land grabbing and have been involved in 20% of land grabbing cases. Pourmokhtar also mentioned in September that there is no 'will' to combat land grabbing in Iran. Some reports indicate the existence of 100,000 land grabbing cases in the judiciary, but judicial officials claim that 18,000 cases related to this phenomenon are currently under review. In May of this year, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, the first deputy of the judiciary, reported the return of more than 42,000 hectares of seized land to the government.