Our Projects
Through our projects, we work with partners and policymakers to address global challenges and advance justice, security, and human dignity.
Proscribing the IRGC in the United Kingdom
Lotus Advocacy urges the U.K. government and European Parliament to take firm action against the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Following recent terror-related arrests in London, we call for the group to be proscribed under the Terrorism Act.
In May 2025, the U.K. Security Minister announced the arrest of eight Iranian nationals suspected of preparing terrorist acts in London. This follows a wider pattern of threats linked to the Islamic Republic and its security apparatus. Lotus Advocacy has written to policymakers in London and Brussels, stressing that placing the IRGC under the Terrorism Act 2000 is necessary to protect communities, uphold international law, and support the Iranian people. This initiative is part of our broader mission to promote accountability for the regime’s crimes and to build solidarity with those fighting for freedom in Iran.
Protecting UK and European Security from the Threat of the Islamic Republic of Iran
Lotus Advocacy works to ensure maximum support for civilians and maximum pressure on the Islamic Republic of Iran. Our members across Europe have raised urgent concerns about threats to public safety, democratic values, and national security.
Iran’s Descent into Water Bankruptcy
The veins of the earth are like the rivers, and the blood in the body is like the water in the river. A couplet from the sacred scripture Aban Yash. An insight into the ancient Iranians who saw the planet as a living organism. By extension water was considered sacred and intrinsic to the Iranian people. For millennia, the Iranian plateau has existed in a delicate, poetic, climate balance. To the north, the Alborz Mountains hold the cold, trapping snow that would feed the meandering valleys below. To the south and east, the desert sun scorches the earth.
For the people of Tehran, this meant a life balanced between mountain runoff and arid plains; a balance, in quite dramatic headlines, has been broken.
Theocratic Neglect
The success of the Persian Empires from ancient times was not a product of luck, but of ingenious engineering. Ancient Iranians managed water with a reverence for its scarcity, inventing the Qanat system long before the Romans the Persians built thousands of miles of underground aqueducts that used gravity to transport water from mountain aquifers to cities with minimal loss due to evaporation. These heralded as everlasting springs but crucially respected the water table, only taking what the Earth could naturally replenish.
In contrast, the current Islamic regime has treated water as a tool for ideological control rather than a sacred resource. Driven by a dogmatic pursuit of "food self-sufficiency" to shield the theocracy from international sanctions, the state encouraged the drilling of over 1.2 milliondeep wells and corruption naturally followed the construction of hundreds of unnecessary dams often by IRGC-linked construction firms. This prioritized short-term political optics over ecological reality. By pumping ancient aquifers dry to grow water-intensive crops in the desert, they didn't just spend the interest of Iran's water they have gambled its future.
Breaking Nature:
The environmental impact of this mismanagement is no longer a future threat; it is a present day concern of a dying landscape.
As Iran’s water table collapses, the ground beneath Tehran is sinking with it. The capital is now among the fastest subsiding cities, with parts of the city sinking by as much as 30cm a year. Resulting in ruptured sewage pipelines, airport runways have cracked, and the structural integrity of buildings across the city have increased.
Yet as the physical consequences of decades of mismanagement become impossible to ignore, senior officials have offered increasingly implausible explanations. At a recent press conference, Brigadier General Gholam Reza Jalali suggested that Iran’s water crisis was being worsened by “cloud and snow theft. ” The claim was swiftly contradicted by Iran’s own Meteorological Organization, which stated that “on the basis of meteorological science, it is not possible for any country to steal clouds or snow.”
What was once a hidden crisis beneath the surface has now become a visible and accelerating failure, tearing through Tehran’s infrastructure while exposing the widening gap between scientific reality and official rhetoric.
The devastation is not confined to Tehran. Lake Urmia, once the largest saltwater lake in the Middle East, has lost 90 percent of its volume. Its retreat has transformed the lakebed into a toxic salt flat, generating salt-laden dust storms that sweep across Iran’s agricultural heartland, accelerating soil erosion and rendering once-fertile land increasingly unviable.
The crisis reported by CNN Climate Team reporting these types of events are “unprecedented water scarcity events, events which haven’t occurred so far you turn on your water tap and no water comes out”. Described as “Day Zero. ” In early 2026, Tehran’s primary reservoirs Lar, Latyan, and Karaj fell to single-digit capacity levels, signalling near-total depletion. This moment represents not a sudden disaster, but the inevitable outcome of decades of mismanagement, environmental neglect, and political denial.
Stalling the Inevitable:
The Ayatollah's government, attempting to keep up the pretense, deployed a series of band-aids on an ecological gunshot wound. Reporting from The Washington Institute paints a dire situation: nightly water pressure cuts tantamount to rationing and talks of extending pipelines from already depleted neighbouring basins only serve to shift the catastrophe from one province to another. These measures do nothing to recharge the aquifers; they simply squeeze the last few drops from a sponge that is already bone dry.
The business side of this crisis is equally grim. Water-intensive industries like steel and petrochemicals, the backbone of the non-oil economy, are facing mandatory shutdowns. The regime relies on a ‘water mafia’, a group of politically connected contractors and military conglomerates like the IRGC’s Khatam al-Anbiya, to prioritise ecologically disastrous dam-building. It’s tantamount to waging a war on its own scientific community. Iran possesses a deep well of world class engineers, ecologists, and hydrologists who understand the land’s ancient relationship with water.
Speaking to Dr. Nasser Karami, Climatologist “While the erosion of traditional systems adapted to Iran’s ecological constraints has contributed significantly to water depletion.The complex tension between tradition and modernity in the development of Iran’s water crisis. The solution lies not just reviving indigenous management methods but in strengthening modern governance”
Further, Iranian engineers and scientists have developed cost-effective, nature based methods for aquifer recharge and flood management that could potentially save over 30 billion cubic meters of water annually. The tragedy is that whilst the solutions are known and could be deployed. Yet, these projects remain shelved because they offer no bribes.
The Iranian people are forced to watch as their historical rivers dry up and their cities sink, knowing that the very minds capable of saving the nation’s future are either teaching in Western universities or being silenced by the state. This crisis is the ultimate proof that the regime’s greatest threat isn’t a lack of rain, it's the brilliance of its own people, which it can neither control nor afford to empower.
Power outages caused by declining water levels at hydroelectric plants, combined with direct water shortages for industry, cost the Iranian economy an estimated $12.7 billion in lost industrial revenue in 2025. Manufacturing hubs across the country are experiencing intermittent shutdowns, supply-chain disruption, and rising production costs, further weakening an economy already under sanctions.
Beyond the balance sheets, the crisis is now driving a historic movement of people. As villages across Iran’s central plateau become increasingly uninhabitable, internal displacement is accelerating, with families preparing to cross international borders. Climate and geopolitical assessments warn that between 15 and 20 million Iranians could be displaced in the next decade. Such an exodus would not only overwhelm Iran’s urban centres but risk triggering a regional migration crisis, reshaping the political geography of the wider Middle East.
A Return to Indigenous Frameworks:
Restoring Iran’s water security is impossible under a regime that views environmental data as a security threat. The path back to a habitable Iran requires a fundamental shift:
1. Restoring Governance: Moving away from a theocratic resistance economy and returning to an indigenous framework of water management that respects the ecological limits of the plateau.
2. Foreign Direct Investment (FDI): Iran needs massive infusions of capital and technology to build modern, energy-efficient desalination plants along the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman to supply the southern and central regions.
3. Modern Harvesting: Replacing the IRGC dam-building mafia with modern rainwater harvesting and wastewater recycling systems like Singapore and Australia.
4. Phasing Out Deep Wells: A generation project but necessary monumental effort would be to seal illegal wells and allow the aquifers the nation's literal foundation to begin the centuries-long process of recovery.
Iran is not just running out of water; it is running out of time. The survival of Persian civilization depends on moving beyond theocratic neglect and back toward the ancient wisdom that once turned these deserts into gardens. Many Iranians now see the return of Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi as the catalyst for this renewal, viewing his leadership as the bridge to the secular, expert driven governance and global investment necessary to pull the nation back from the brink of ecological collapse.
Countering False Narratives About Iran
For the past two weeks, the Iranian people have taken to the streets fully aware that they are risking their lives in pursuit of freedom. Contrary to misleading narratives circulating internationally, these protests are not about rising prices or inflation. They represent a direct uprising against an oppressive and illegitimate regime.
The chants heard across Iran “Death to the dictator,” open calls for regime change, and widespread support for the return of the legitimate heir, Prince Reza Pahlavi unmistakably demonstrate the people’s demand for a democratic future, national dignity, and sovereignty.
1-Economic Protests
Many outside observers attempt to reduce this uprising to economic dissatisfaction. This interpretation is false and dangerously misleading. While economic hardship is real, Iranians are protesting decades of dictatorship, repression, corruption, and systemic human rights abuses. Their struggle is for freedom, national sovereignty, and the fundamental right to choose their own government — not for short-term economic relief.
2-AI Videos and Digital Disinformation
Another tactic used to undermine the uprising is the claim that videos emerging from Iran are fake or generated by artificial intelligence. These assertions are baseless. The footage shared online comes directly from Iranians risking their lives to document reality. Authentic protest videos are easily distinguishable from fabricated propaganda. Labelling real evidence as “AI-generated” is a deliberate strategy to silence Iranian voices, discredit eyewitness testimony, and erase the truth.
3-The Truth About Prince Reza Pahlavi
Some falsely portray Prince Reza Pahlavi as merely symbolic or unqualified. The reality is quite the opposite. For 47 years, he has consistently opposed the Islamic Republic and advocated for democracy, human rights, secular governance, and a free national referendum determined solely by the Iranian people.
As the son of Iran’s last Shah, he brings both historical legitimacy and modern competence:
- University-educated in political studies
- Former Air Force pilot
- Fluent in four languages
- Well-connected with Western political leaders
- Deeply familiar with democratic institutions and values
Prince Reza Pahlavi has repeatedly stated that he does not seek power for himself but aims to facilitate a peaceful transition and return sovereignty to the Iranian people.
4-The MEK and the Danger of False Alternatives
Another dangerous false narrative promotes the MEK (Mujahedin-e Khalq) as a viable alternative to the current regime. The MEK is a widely rejected, cult-like organization with a long history of violence. They supported Saddam Hussein during the Iran–Iraq War, were responsible for the deaths of Iranians, and played a role in enabling Khomeini’s rise in 1979. The Iranian people overwhelmingly reject the MEK and view it as another form of tyranny, not an opposition movement. Iranians have made their position clear: they would rather endure the brutality of the current regime than accept the MEK as rulers.
5-Foreign Agents and Manufactured Protests
The regime claims protesters are rebels, CIA or Mossad agents, blaming the United States and Israel to hide the truth. This is a lie. The people in the streets are ordinary Iranians workers, shopkeepers, labourers, teachers, students, mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers. They are not fighting for foreign powers; they are fighting for their own freedom.
After 47 years of brutality, corruption, failed reform, and dictatorship under Khamenei, Iranians know reform is impossible as long as this regime remains in power. While the country sinks deeper into crisis, national wealth is stolen by the ruling elite or sent abroad to fund terrorist proxies and radical ideology.
6-Prince Reza Pahlavi and Popular Legitimacy
The claim that Prince Reza Pahlavi lacks legitimacy is contradicted by reality. Millions of Iranians have taken to the streets carrying his image and the Lion and Sun flag, chanting his name not the names of reformists, Marxists, the MEK, or other failed alternatives. This is how legitimacy is earned. Iranians have clearly moved past false options and failed reforms. They see Prince Reza Pahlavi as a unifying figure for a transitional period, representing secularism, equality, development, and Iran’s return to the global community.
Attempts to deny his legitimacy originate solely from regime propaganda and its allies.
7-The Reality on the Ground
The Islamic Republic continues to respond to peaceful protests with extreme violence. Protesters are being shot, imprisoned, tortured, and deliberately maimed.
To date:
- Tens of thousands have been killed
- Over 35,000 people have been imprisoned
- Thousands have lost their eyesight due to targeted gunfire
- Countless others have disappeared
