The Plague of Land Grabbing

Following reports about land grabbing, Masoumeh Ebtekar, head of the Department of Environment and Vice President, and Ali Shams Ardekani, founder of the Qeshm Free Zone, state that encroachments on public lands are occurring in various dimensions. In an interview with ILNA, Ebtekar mentions that from the early months of the eleventh government, a serious audit of the areas managed by the Department of Environment was pursued, revealing violations and encroachments in some areas, notably in the Varjin region. According to Ebtekar, there are at least 50 judicial cases related to these land grabs, which were hidden and not executed in the home of a former legal official of the Tehran Department of Environment during the previous administration. On the other hand, Ali Shams Ardekani tells Shargh newspaper that the greed for land grabbing by government organizations along the coasts and islands is very high. He states that when the coastal highway was built in this area, four to five million square meters of land between the highway and the sea were unjustly seized. I asked Fariborz Rais Dana, an economist in Tehran, how the economic background of land grabbing can be explained. He explained that land is part of space, and space is produced. In Iran's economy, land has long been commodified. This is because they go and claim land as a space to create, even with just a fence. For a long time, capital in Iran has been inclined towards intermediary, financial activities, and buying and selling land, referred to as 'land play' by the people. Therefore, when oil revenues and inflationary budgets are allocated to specific layers of society, they go and claim land to create spaces for construction. For instance, land was taken for a dam, which has now been revealed to be destructive. This was defined to seize those lands. The Tehran-North freeway is the same; it was halted because they initially wanted to build it and then create spaces, meaning forest lands would be seized and later come into the market for buying and selling. This is a discussion within their economic framework. However, in practice, the powerful in Iran, who are also wealthy, especially when these two mix, encroach upon pastures and lands that should be available to the public. Generally, they seize fertile and pleasant lands and later allow for villa construction, like in Gerdakhe Hirran. Due to corruption and misuse, and since the economic mechanism makes such land ownership profitable, and because the structure of power also facilitates these encroachments, this has continued. Most of it is essentially because the government and state institutions have a very high and corrupt economic power. ILNA reported from Shiraz, quoting Hossein Masoum, advisor and authorized representative of the Minister of Roads and Urban Development in the Council for the Preservation of Public Assets in Lands and Natural Resources, stating that significant land grabs have occurred in the Sadra town, covered under sacred terms. According to Masoumi, some individuals, under the guise of endowment, sought to misuse and seize national lands, and the case is currently being pursued in the judiciary of Fars province. Qasem Shoaleh Saadi, a lawyer and former member of the Islamic Consultative Assembly in Tehran, discusses land grabbing in Shaz with Radio Farda, stating that many lands, classified as natural resources and national lands, have been seized by various individuals or organizations, creating a strange rent in these lands. For instance, in Sadra town in Shiraz, it was once mentioned that the Ahl al-Bayt Institute requested a significant amount of land to be transferred to them. Or I personally was involved in a case where 700 hectares of land were identified by the Islamic Propagation Organization, which requested that it be transferred to them. It was transferred, then sold to others, ultimately resulting in a legal case in which I represented against the Islamic Propagation Organization. Recently, mountain grabbing has also been raised, where lands have been seized in the foothills and put on the stock market. This is not a new issue; for several years, a center and headquarters have been established in the judiciary for public and national lands.