Following the release of a list of 129 unsafe buildings in Tehran, the former head of the City Council of the capital said Monday security authorities had been against the publication of the list in the past.

In an interview with Ensaf News on Monday, Mohsen Hashemi Rafsanjani said that the list had been available since at least 2020 but security authorities pushed to bury the list of high-risk buildings in Tehran. Ensaf News last week published the list, citing the fire department.

Ghodratollah Mohammadi, the new head of Tehran Fire Department, who said on Sunday that "we will definitely publish the list of 129 high-risk buildings in Tehran with the coordination of the prosecutor's office," rejected the validity of the list on Monday. "It is invalid and has nothing to do with the Tehran fire department," he said.

He had said on Sunday that there are more than three thousand cases of such buildings in the capital.

The issue of unsafe buildings has become hot as protests began last Monday, when a 10-story building collapsed in Abadan, leaving 34 people dead and an equal number missing. It quickly became apparent that the owner was a powerful and well-connected businessman who had disregarded regulations and building codes, being backed by officials, who might have had their own financial interests.

Anti-government protests continue in Iran’s oil-rich Khuzestan province as large number of security forces have been mobilized to crack down.