The Week in Review: March.22nd – March.29th

By Natasha Phillips

MAR.29 – Devastating floods in Iran have left at least 44 people dead and several hundred injured according to the latest reports from Iranian media, with no signs of the floods stopping in the immediate future. Floods in northern Iran along the Caspian Sea have caused losses of $392 million to the country’s agricultural sector. The full extent of the damage nationwide in terms of financial cost is not yet known. Iranian citizens rallied together this week, with reports of people opening their homes to stranded travelers and others rescuing animals from flooded areas. 

The European Court of Justice in Luxembourg ruled on Wednesday that there were no grounds in international law to uphold a 2012 U.S. court decision to strip Iran of sovereign immunity. The ruling means that families of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks will not be able to claim Iranian assets held by a Luxembourg-based clearing house. The plaintiffs were awarded damages of $7 billion but will not be able to seize Iranian assets inside Luxembourg to satisfy their claim. 

  • As flash floods continue to sweep across Iran, growing criticism around the government’s handling of the water crisis and its mismanagement of the country’s waterways were highlighted across social media. Iranians took to Twitter to condemn the government’s failures to respond to the crisis calling their efforts, “Too little, too late,” while environmentalists discussed the ways in which the extensive damage from the floods could have been avoided. Examples of government profiteering and inept management practices were outlined by Iranian media. Kayhan Life spoke to two prominent ecologists about the water crisis.
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  • A violent crackdown by Hamas on protesters in Gaza, many of whom were youngsters responding to the March 14 Movement which uses the “We Want To Live” (“Bedna Neesh” ) slogan, led to Hamas supporters condemning the move. Images of injured children and women were widely circulated across social media. People in the Gaza Strip were protesting about the economic situation inside the region which has become critical. Israel was hit by a rocket fired from Gaza on Monday, leading to a flare-up which saw Israel retaliate with a round of strikes on Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday and Wednesday. A senior Hamas official speaking anonymously to an Israeli newspaper on Tuesday claimed that the rocket which hit a town in central Israel on Monday was ordered by Iran.
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  • Iran’s Judiciary has postponed the trial of eight environmentalists who have been jailed since January 2018 as the Nowruz holidays (Iranian New Year starting March 21) take place. The news was published on the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) website, though a new date for the trial has not been given. The adjournment has been made to allow for a series of high-profile corruption trials to the heard, according to Abolghasem Salavati, the presiding judge at Branch 15 of Tehran’s Revolutionary Court. The defendants were charged with “spreading corrupting on earth,” “espionage,” and “working with a hostile government.”
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  • Iran has the worst workplace gender gap record after Pakistan and Yemen, according to a report published by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). The report ranked Iran 118th out of 120 countries in terms of progress when it came to narrowing the gender gap and creating employment opportunities for women. A new study by the Statistical Center of Iran showed that in 2017, only 19.7 percent of the nearly 27 million people in the workforce were women. Laws inside the Islamic Republic do not allow women to take part in a large number of professions. Women are not able to serve as judges or as the country’s president. Women are also not allowed to take up jobs as oil rig workers, sailors, soldiers, or firefighters.
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