ANKARA, Turkey

Araz News: Every year on May 22, members of the Azerbaijani community in Iran and around the world commemorate the event they call “the cartoon incident.”

This year, for the first time, the highly-circulated Turkish newspapers, Hurriyet, Milliyet and Bugun, as well as several smaller papers and dozens of Turkish news websites covered the demonstrations of Azerbaijani activists in front of the Iranian Embassy in Ankara on May 23.

The Ankara protests were attended by 50 to 60 Azerbaijani activists and were anti-Iranian regime in nature. Chanting slogans, the activists called for an end to Iran’s discrimination against Turks and for the official inclusion and teaching of the Azerbaijani Turkish language in Iran’s education system. Additional demands included justice in football, as well as for the Iranian government to listen and consider the demands of Azerbaijani people in Iran generally.

These protests marked the ninth anniversary of Azerbaijani protests over “the cartoon incident”.

On May 12, 2006, an Iranian state-supported newspaper published a cartoon depicting a cockroach who spoke Azerbaijani Turkish, along with the suggestion that the roach be denied food until it learned to speak Persian. This depiction inflamed the Azerbaijani people, and demonstrations ensued, spreading across Iran’s northern cities. By May 22, 2006, hundreds of thousands of Azerbaijanis had taken to the streets in protest.

The 2006 protests began with demonstrations by Azerbaijani university students demanding a formal government apology for the cartoon. When no official government response materialized, the demonstrations grew in number and spread to other cities in the northern, predominantly Azerbaijani region of Iran. These demonstrations were not only a reaction to the offensive cartoon, but also served as a more general protest against decades of discrimination and oppression felt by Azerbaijanis in Iran.

On May 22, 2006, the largest anti-state demonstration since the founding of the Islamic Republic of Iran occurred in the city of Tabriz.  Protesters took to the streets, calling on Tehran to respect the rights of ethnic Azerbaijanis and demanding that Azerbaijani Turkish be recognized as an official state language. These peaceful demonstrations were met with force, with state security personnel firing upon the crowds, reportedly killing at least 15 and arresting hundreds. Similar demonstrations and state responses occurred in most of Iran’s Azerbaijani cities. In Naghadeh (Sulduz), Urmia and Meshghinsherhr (Khiyav), the protests were bloody and at least 10 people were killed.

In response to the widespread demonstrations, the Iranian government quickly removed the editor-in-chief of the offending newspaper, as well as the cartoonist. However, no official apology was released. Furthermore, the Iranian state-controlled media downplayed the demonstrations, despite their unprecedented size and widespread nature. These protests also went largely unnoticed by foreign media outlets.  As a result, Azerbaijanis found themselves completely alone in their struggle for their rights in Iran. Not even the opposition in Iran, the so-called “reformist camp,” supported the Azerbaijanis’ protests.