Spokesman of the Article 90 Commission: Tehran Has the Highest Rate of Land Grabbing

The spokesman for the Article 90 Commission of the Iranian Parliament stated that Tehran province has the highest rate of land grabbing, and the head of the same commission mentioned that "there are no accurate statistics on the extent of land grabbing in Iran, but thousands of hectares have been subject to land grabbing." Mustafa Afzali-Fard, the spokesman for the Article 90 Commission, said on Wednesday, October 1, to the House of the Nation website, the news agency of the Parliament, that "the Article 90 Commission has sent the cases of some individuals who have committed violations related to land grabbing to the relevant authorities, but no action has been taken against them." He noted that the names of the offenders cannot be disclosed. However, he stated that the most land grabbing occurs in Tehran province due to the high added value of its lands, which attracts many buyers. Recently, following reports about land grabbing in Iran, Morteza Touraj, the deputy prosecutor and head of the Tehran Land Grabbing Prosecutor's Office, warned about this phenomenon, saying, "Since ten thousand hectares of land in northern Tehran do not have ownership documents, there is a significant danger near the capital." Meanwhile, Mohammad Ali Pourmokhtar, the head of the Article 90 Commission, stated on a special news program on state television that some officials are behind land grabbing, asserting that land grabbing is related to the actions of officials, as some say they are pressured to allocate a certain amount for a specific location, and each local agency must pay a certain amount. According to Mr. Pourmokhtar, some officials also sell surrounding lands to manage city affairs, with some of them being involved in about 20% of land grabbing and benefiting from it. In recent weeks, the issue of land grabbing in the Heyran Pass has become one of the most important media discussions in Iran. Heyran is a beautiful mountainous village in the Astara County of Gilan province. On Wednesday, August 28, Kamal al-Din Pir-Mo'een, the representative of Ardabil and Sarein in Parliament, stated that he had sent the names of 65 land grabbers, including "close relatives" of the representative from Astara, to the presidential office. The representative from Astara had previously made the same accusation against the representative from Ardabil. However, on Wednesday, October 1, Mohammad Reza Hemmati, the director general of natural resources and watershed management in Hamadan province, told the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) that an offender had seized more than 10 hectares of national land in Hamadan and converted it into agricultural land. He stated that the first branch of the criminal court in Famenin, Hamadan, not only ordered the return of the national land but also sentenced the offender to a two-year ban on residing in Hamadan and six months in prison. The issue of land grabbing in Iran became a widespread topic after Ayatollah Khamenei, the leader of the Islamic Republic, criticized the prevalence of land grabbing in Iran during a speech to government officials.