Several injured during Iran water protests

About 500 demonstrators gathered in the main square of Khorramshahr to protest against drinking water pollution

Iran's Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli speaks during a press conference in the capital Tehran on July 1, 2018.  / AFP / ATTA KENARE
Powered by automated translation

Several people were injured in the southwestern Iranian city of Khorramshahr during a demonstration against water pollution, Iranian state media reported.

Protesters set fire to rubbish bins and damaged public property late on Saturday, prompting police to fire tear gas to disperse them, the state-run Irna news agency said on Sunday.

Officials gave different accounts of those injured during the protest, with Deputy Interior Minister Hossein Zolfaghari saying 11 people were hurt when someone opened fire.

"Ten were members of the security forces" and one was a civilian who was hospitalised, he was quoted by Irna as saying.

The attacker has not been identified, the news agency said.

Interior Minister Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli, meanwhile, said just one person was injured in a "confrontation involving shots".

He denied reports carried by Saudi media that Iranian security forces had shot and killed at least four protesters.

"The statements saying numerous people were killed are false," he told the media.

The unrest erupted after about 500 people, mostly youth, gathered at a main square in the city to protest against pollution that is seeping into the city's drinking water network, Irna reported.

Protesters also gathered outside a mosque, the agency added.

It said there were several protests against water pollution in Khorramshahr and the neighbouring city of Abadan over the past three days.

Iran has been facing mounting economic woes since the United States in May pulled out of a 2015 accord between Tehran and world powers that had lifted international sanctions in exchange for curbs on the Islamic republic's nuclear programme.

Iran's currency has plunged up to 50 per cent in value in the past six months against the US dollar and inflation is on the rise.

Traders in Tehran's Grand Bazaar held a rare strike on Monday against the collapse of the rial.

Brief scuffles also broken out between protesters and police in the capital.

On Sunday, Iranian Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri said on state television the country was suffering from several problems, not just US sanctions.

Among Iran's "woes", he cited its dependence on oil revenues along with a weak private sector and a fragile banking sector.

Industry Minister Mohammad Shariatmadari told a news conference in Tehran on Saturday that the situation was not "critical" but "special".

He urged foreign firms working in Iran to resist US "threats" of sanctions and to continue doing business in the country.

While the European signatories to the nuclear deal have said they would not withdraw, they could be affected by fresh US sanctions on Iran.

In an interview broadcast on Sunday President Donald Trump affirmed that he would sanction European companies if they did business with Iran. "Yep, of course. That's what we're doing, absolutely," he said on the Fox News show Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo.