Araz News: According to South Azerbaijani sources 19 South Azerbaijani right activists who were arrested in match between Tractor-Sazi football team of Azerbaijan and Al-Jazeera of UAE, all are sentenced to 3 months and 1 day in prison and 30 whips. The verdicts are suspended until 2 years.

Reportedly 104 branch of criminal court of Tabriz has sentenced the 19 South Azerbaijani activist on 4^th February 2015 charging of disrupting general order.

Names of defendants are as below:

Jafar Rostami Rad

Kasra Davoudi

Mousa Soudi Moghanlou

Ali Ahmadi Helan

Siamak Seifi

Hossein Adl Jou

Hossein Khaki

Said Dadash Pour

Yasin Fathi

Babak Azar Nezhad

Hossein Firouzi

Mokhtar Tanhaei

Hossein Bayat

Farhad Chavoshi

Ali Reza Beyat

Said Shabani

Yavar Mahmoud Pour

Siamak Irani

Shahram Ebrahimi

Azerbaijani Turks consider Tractor Sazi team as a national issue.
During the matches of Tactor Sazi football team usually fans shout slogans and show banners to sound human rights of Azerbaijani community in Iran.
Lake Urmia’s drying problem is a focal point in Tractor fans demonstrations.
In the last years the sport matches in South Azerbaijan have become a field for South Azerbaijani Turkic people to demonstrate their national aspirations. Especially matches of Tractor Sazi Football Club of Tabriz are focused. Frequently tens of thousands of fans come to Tabriz from all South Azerbaijan provinces (Urmia, Zanjan, Ardabil, etc.) to support Tractor and also to make national demonstrations.
Azerbaijani Turks are second largest ethnic group in Iran with a slight difference after Persians.
South Azerbaijan which is majorly populated by ethnic Turks is an ethnically problematic region in Iran which Iran spends efforts to hold the nationalist tendency of region under control.