Araz News: On 6 of March, 2017, the spokesperson of ANRO (Azerbaijan National Resistance Organization) Mr. Babek Chalabiyanli has written an official letter to United Nations high commissioner Mr. Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein about heavy sentences against South Azerbaijani human rights activists by Iran regime’s judges recently.

The content of the letter is as follows:

Azerbaijan National Resistance Organization

(Azərbaycan Milli Dirəniş Təşkilatı – AMDT)
March 06,2017

No: 2017-1009

United Nations High Commissioner

of Human Rights

Dear Mr. Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein,

Subject: Heavy sentences against South Azerbaijani human rights activists

 

Dear Commissioner,

I would like to inform and take Your Excellency attention about some South Azerbaijani activists’ situation in Iran.
Given the lack of international access to the social situation in Iran, the Iranian regime severely repressed activists of non-Persians. And due to the international concerns over Iran’s interventionist performance in the area and repression of human rights and civil activists, the world needs to understand the human rights atrocities committed by the Iranian regime that all too often receive scant attention. Iran’s crimes against the oppressed none Persian nations remain hidden, rarely reported and never addressed.

 

What political prisoners of none Persian ethnicities are subjected to comprises a glaring example of the discriminatory and repressive acts practiced by the Iranian regime. For such a long time, non-Persian oppressed nations such as Turks of South Azerbaijan, Ahwazi Arabs, Kurds, Baluchis caged in Iran have had to suffer from severely limited access to basic rights, most notable of which is the right of education in the mother tongue.
Recently on February 21th in the International Mother Language Day, Iran Islamic Tribunal sentenced 4 South Azerbaijani mother language advocates to the sum of 45 years in prison simply for attempting to promote their mother language. Prior to this sentence on Jan 21, 2017, Siyamak Mirzayi was sentenced to 10 years’ prison, 2 years’ exile. So that summon and interrogation of South Azerbaijani activists by intelligence service (Ettellaat) has become a daily occurrence.

 

The Tribunal found the aforesaid human rights activist “guilty of organizing a meeting to destabilize country’s national security”. The Tribunal indicated in its “Reasons for Decision” that the activist organized a peaceful gathering 3 years ago on the International Mother Language Day to “destabilize” the country.

 

• Alireza Farshi has been sentenced to 15 years in prison and 2 years’ exile to the Bagmalik town of Khuzestan Province.

 

South Azerbaijan National movement activists Mr. Alireza Farshi is a university professor in computer engineering field. It is important to say that Alireza Farshi a dismissed university lecturer of the Azad International University of Jolfa had been arrested on 21st February 2015, during the activities in celebration of International Mother Language Day.  He was released from Evin prison on the bail on 19th of April 2015.

 

• Akbar Azad, a well-known poet and journalist has been sentenced to 10 years in prison and 2 years’ exile to the remote town of Dareshahr of Ilam province.

 

• Behnam Sheikhi has been sentenced to 10 years of incarceration and 2 years’ exile in Mascid Soleiman of Khuzestan Province and Mr.

 

• Hamid Manafi is another south Azerbaijani mother tongue advocate who is sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment and 2 years’ exile in town of Azna of Province of Loristan.

 

• The South Azerbaijani human rights advocate Siyamak Mirzayi was sentenced to a harsh punishment of 10 years in prison and 2 years’ exile to Tabas region, located in South Khorasan, by the Islamic Revolutionary Tribunal of Baharistan-Tehran.

 

• Another case, there is no Information about Azerbaijan National Movement activist Hojjat al-Islam Azimi Ghadimi – a well-known Azerbaijani cleric- after two months of his detention.

 

 

Hojjat al-Islam Azimi Ghadimi and his friend Ali Bagheri were arrested by the Iran regime security forces known as ‘Ettelaat’ in Tehran city on the 7th of Jan 2017 and there is no information about their whereabouts up to now.

 

• Habib Sasanian (yakamoz) is a human right activist, poet and author of South Azerbaijan and he is from Ardabil city was arrested on May 15 of 2016.

 

it should be noted that, Habib Sasanian in a short phone conversion with his family, asked his family and kids to forgive him as he may not see them ever again.

 

Most respectfully,

Babek Chalabiyanli

Spokesman of

Azerbaijan National Resistance Organization (ANRO)

 

 

 

 

 

South Azerbaijan and the National Movement of Azerbaijan

 

 

South Azerbaijan and the National Movement of Azerbaijan South Azerbaijan is a vast region in Northwestern Iran, which is populated predominantly by Azerbaijani Turks. Throughout the past millennium, most of the consecutive governments that ruled over Iran have hailed from the Azerbaijani-Turkish nation. It wasn’t until the overthrow of the Azerbaijani Qajar empire by Reza Shah Pahlavi in 1925, that ethnic Persian nationalism became the dominant doctrine and consequently anti-Arabism, anti-Turkism and anti-Islamism became the basis for forming the modern Iranian nation-state. The Persianate dynasty began a policy of eliminating all non-Persian (non-Farsi) cultural and historical heritage, thus erasing the legacy of the Azerbaijani Turks. The Pahlavi’s viewed the Azerbaijani Turkish culture, language, and civilization as one which posed an existential threat to the dominance of the Persian identity in Iran being that over 30% of the entire population of the fledgling state was comprised of ethnic Turks. South Azerbaijan, which had been the most modern and developed region in the empire over the centuries was suddenly starved of its economic standing and quickly deteriorated into one of the most impoverished. Throughout the last eight decades, the Turkish nation in South Azerbaijan has been subjected to economic, political, social, and cultural discrimination and oppression.

 

Mass humiliation and ridicule under systematic racism has grown to become one of the most detrimental problems to the Azerbaijani identity and the national psyche.

Not only did the ethnic segregation of Iran’s minorities persist even after the 1979, Islamic revolution, but this mentality has infiltrated every aspect of Iranian society, including the supposedly democratic opposition, which under no circumstance recognizes that Iran is a multi-ethnic, multi-religious, and multi-cultural country. This being even though Iran’s Farsi-speaking population is just shy of constituting a simple majority of the population of Iran, the majority being comprised of the lager number of all other ethnic groups. Thus, the Azerbaijani Turkish nation starting from the early 1900s has maintained a resistance campaign to counteract and repel Persian chauvinism. To halt the persecution and discrimination that has plagued South Azerbaijan for decades and protect Azerbaijan’s historical heritage, identity, and dignity, Azerbaijani Turks have taken to multifaceted forms of expression, risking detention, torture, and even death. The modern stage of national struggle, referred to as the “National Movement of Azerbaijan” has consistently grown since the late 1980s. The National Movement of Azerbaijan is now a powerful and well-supported political movement, calling for the social and collective human rights and freedoms of Turkish society in South Azerbaijan.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Azerbaijan National Resistance Organization

 

 

Azerbaijan National Resistance Organization (ANRO) was established in 2006.

Azerbaijan National Resistance Organization

 

Azerbaijan National Resistance Organization (ANRO), was established in 2006. ANRO defines itself as a part and subset of general National Movement of Azerbaijan. ANRO advocates for the economic, political, social, cultural and human rights and fundamental liberties of Turkish nation in South Azerbaijan. ANRO believes firmly in the principles of democracy and acts using methods and values of civil disobedience to achieve its aims.

ANRO avoids and condemns all kinds of violence especially governmental and organized armed terrorism.

We, the Azerbaijan National Resistance Organization (ANRO), strongly believe that all necessary conditions for the self-determination of the Turkish nation in South Azerbaijan should be fulfilled and that self-determination for our nation is a legitimate and legal right.

By-A.A