Domestic

Home page

Domestic

Full text of Azeri human rights defenderâ€™s speech in US Congress hearings on state of ethnic minorities in Iran made public

24 March 2008 12:17 (UTC +04:00)

Two congressmen Mark Steven Kirk (Illinois, Co-Chair of Iran Working Group) and Sheila Jackson Lee (Texas) also attended the hearings to acquaint with the opinion of the Azerbaijanis and other ethnics residing in Iran, as well as Kurds, Bahais, Arabs, Belujis. Speaking about the state and problems of South Azerbaijanis Fahta Zamani said 20 million Azerbaijanis were the greatest minorities in Iran.
â€œThey mainly live in the north and north-west of Iran. Azerbaijani is also spoken in north-eastern and central Iran and capital Tehran. All of these people live in the conditions where their social, economic ad political rights have been violated. Beginning from 1920, both during the reign of the Pahlavi dynasty and Islamist regime, the policy pursued by the Iranian government aimed at compulsory assimilation of non-persians and discrimination towards them. After the revolution in 1979, the new regime wiped Azerbaijanâ€™s name off broad parts of Azerbaijani territory dividing Azerbaijan into administrative units (for example, division of Eastern Azerbaijan province into Eastern Azerbaijan and Erdebil provinces in 1993). In fact, the government applied â€œpersianisationâ€ of names not only to the geographical places, but also to the birth certificates, parents were forbidden to give Azerbaijani names to their children.
Ban of the Azerbaijani language makes up the core of the governmentâ€™s attempts to assimilate Azerbaijani people. The government arrests men and women for having Azerbaijani books, organizing Azeri-language courses to protect their culture and attending festivals. No textbook has been published in Azerbaijani yet. Almost all literature for children is in Persian. Millions of Azerbaijanis have no school to learn to read and write in their mother tongue,â€ she said.
The human rights defender said the government attempted to strangle Azerbaijanisâ€™ human rights and freedom of expression in the sphere of media and noted that broadcast of the Azeri-language television and radio programs was restricted only to the state-run stations and the news articles had been translated into â€œfazeriâ€, persianized Azeri. â€œFazeriâ€ (like Spanglish) is the mixture of the Persian and Azerbaijani languages. Of course, these two languages differ from each other completely and belong to different language groups. This tactics accelerated cultural and linguistic assimilation of the Azerbaijanis. Those who lead the process consider that finally Azeri will lose its status of independent language and become â€œdialectâ€ of Persian. The Azerbaijanis are openly insulted on the radio, television and media (the whole media is subordinated to the state in Iran). They are presented as â€œdonkeysâ€ and â€œcockroachesâ€ and people having no humane features. The Azerbaijanis are regarded as slow-witted persons, as they do not speak Persian, the official language of Iran fluently. This discrimination has been documented, investigated and analyzed by western scientists, such as Doctor Brenda Shaffer, Doctor Alirza Asgarzade and others,â€ she said.
Ms. Zamani mentioned the caricature published in official newspaper â€œIranâ€ on May 12, 2006, which represented Azerbaijanis as cockroaches, and said hundreds of Azerbaijanis held peaceful demonstrations.
â€œIranian Revolutionary Guards Corps, Special Troops and Basij troops attacked on the demonstrators. At least 27 were killed, hundreds injured and many became blind because of volleys. It was followed by mass arrests by Iranian intelligence services, hundreds, including teenagers were arrested,â€ she said.
The human rights defender expressed her discontent with the indifference of western media towards the violation of Azerbaijanisâ€™ rights and underlined that very few were aware of the savageries against Azerbaijanis in Iran.
â€œInternational Amnesty Organization, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and recently the Department of State expressed concern over the security of imprisoned Azerbaijanis and called on the Iranian government to respect the human rights and its international commitments. Azerbaijani activists fight for the natural elementary rights, such as the right to education in mother tongue. On the days important for the history of Azerbaijani nation they are not allowed gathering to commemorate national heroes, Babek, Sattarkhan and Bagirkhan and national leader Pishavari. Azerbaijani human rights defenders are arrested and treated badly in the prisons in Iran. Azerbaijanis religious men, who attempt to raise the issue on the recognition of elementary human rights, have been arrested. Despite little international experience and foreign support, the movement for the national rights is the strongest protest against Iranian regime. The US policy towards Iran targets at Tehran, while the greatest protest against Iranian regime is in the provinces settled by the ethnic minorities. We want support to the Azerbaijanis and other minorities in Iran, they need the attention of the world. They need to know that they do not risk their lives for equal rights in vain. They need hope. International support will inspirit them in their struggle for equal rights. And this means great stability and democracy in Iran and the whole Middle East. Minorities in Iran are the motive forces of the changes which the country needs so much. They are fighting for positive changes in Iran and need every support they can get,â€ she said.