Written by Rahim Hamid, Ahwazi Arab writer

Human rights principles in the modern era were founded based on agreements that were supposed to recognize and grant basic human rights to different groups of people regardless of their race, colour, religious beliefs and geographic locations.

Based on these agreements, every human being has inherent rights including   freedom of conscience, equality in the enjoyment of pursuit of happiness in terms of   civic, cultural, legal and political rights.

These rights have been adopted by many countries, and the governments are obligated to abide by these international conventions to respect the dignity of all people.

In recent years, a number of Iranian human rights organisations have been established abroad.  An important question is why the course of activities of these institutions is almost always directed on Tehran’s residents and the central parts of Iran, ignoring the most marginalised parts of the country?

There are many questions that need to be answered about the performance of Iranian human rights activists. To investigate the performance of the Iranian human rights organisations, I have reviewed and listed the experiences and interactions of ethnic groups, in particular, Ahwazi Arab rights campaigners who have so far had contact with the Iranian human rights organisations.

The central domain of concern to Iranian human rights activists:

The core attention of the majority of Iranian rights groups has broadly been devoted to spotlight the violations that are committed against persons that live in Tehran capital and central Persian regions. These organisations in their written goals claim that they are seeking democracy, civil freedom and putting an end to racial oppression and discriminations   but such stated objects have never been put into actions when they deal with the human rights issues linked to Ahwazi Arabs as well as other ethnic groups. Until about two years ago, there has not been even a simple statement or action by Iranian human rights organisations denouncing the execution and persecution perpetrated against the Arab people of Ahwaz.  Only after many actions carried by Ahwazi activists only two or three organizations, among dozens of Iranian human rights organisations, took action by revealing the human rights violations in Ahwaz. The other organisations engaged in ultra-racist duplicity to evade highlighting the Ahwazi plight.

Iranian human rights activist ways of dealing with human rights violations in Ahwaz

Due to intense security environment in Ahwaz, filled with ongoing threats to the families of the Ahwazi prisoners as well as the accompaniment of the heavily censored Persian media outlets, the blackout on regime violations inflicted upon Ahwazis has become an excuse frequently made to Iranian human rights activists.  Allegedly, as a result of the lack of information about the victims, they are denied the news of violations exercised by the regime in Al-Ahwaz. But, it when comes to the issue of persons in the Iranian capital and other Persian regions, these so-called Iranian rights organisations in many cases  basing their  reports on guesses and predictions, have been  several statements expressing their grave concern about the human rights situation of Persian people there.

Biased judgment and political orientations adopted by Iranian rights activists:

Many Iranian human rights organisations affiliated with political opposition  groups such as Iranian National Front known for having Persian-centered , ethnocentric, and anti-Arab sentiments benefit from media blocks imposed  during the crackdown on Ahwazi Arab activists  and  promoted charges pressed against Ahwazis by the Iranian clerical regime. In the meeting organized by the Solidarity Network for Democracy and Human Rights in Iran, two members of its Central Committee have called five of Ahwazi Arab civic and cultural activists of Al-Hiwar Institute who were sentenced to the death penalty by the Iranian Supreme Court terrorists.  These individuals based their accusations on falsehoods promoted by the Islamic Republic regime against Ahwazis and have shamefully sided with the regime’ defamatory charges. They demanded that all human rights organisations should ignore these activists and should not cover their cases. This attitude led to the eventual executions for two of them and life sentences for the rest   These well-educated and highly respected  individuals labeled terrorists by the  Iranian activists were demanding   abolition of discrimination against Arab people of Al- Ahwaz, ending the unlimited looting  of the natural resources of this region, , an end to the ethnic cleansing policies of cultural assimilation, the stopping all water transfer projects that destroy agriculture,  and immigration of the original inhabitants of the region  of  Al-Ahwaz after  the confiscation of agricultural land, among other demands.

Another example of heinous acts by Iranian human rights organisations is deliberate manipulating and distortion of the facts related to Ahwazi Arabs, such as the   report on human rights violations of Ahwazi Arab people that has been documented by Iran Human Rights Documentation Center. The “Geography and History section” of the report has misrepresented points that give a false account of the reality of Ahwazi Arab people as those who wrote it apparently were attempting falsification of history and denial of the existence of the entire Ahwazi people.

Also, it is not consistent with the content of the report, which is supposed to be objective and on human rights and should not go beyond that.

It should not have entered into misleading historical issues that are apparently distorting the image of the Arab people of Al-Ahwaz.

Such statements that are asserted in the introduction of the report are mentioned without referring to any credible sources and solely aimed at discrediting the historical existence of this people as it considers them immigrants came from Saudi Arabia during the advent of Islam.

These statements are parroting the same false claims of the former Pahlavi regime, and the current Islamic Republic regime. These statements that deemed Ahwazis as immigrants are regarded as another type of infringement of rights of these people who were not recognized as indigenous citizens who have full and comprehensive rights. Such remarks are based in an exclusionary and racist narrative that contributed to the distortion of the history of our people. This legal organisation should not be used for any other purpose than defending human rights principles.

There are elements of the Iranian racist political parties that infiltrated the Iran Human rights Documentation Center. Such elements who call themselves as reformists rather than exposing the human rights abuses committed by the Iranian regime, are seeking to advance their hidden prospective political agenda under the guise of Human rights principles. Falsifying facts and using distorted terms that are a far cry from the human rights defense will result in serving the Iranian regime policy.

Ahwazi Arabs are the indigenous people of AL- Ahwaz and not immigrant and scattered nomadic clans as is outrageously claimed by the Iran Human rights Documentation Center.  Ahwazi people have lived for thousands of years on their historic land, and they have their shared Arabic language and culture, history and consciousness, and are proud of this.

What was mentioned in this document is no different from  the violations committed by the Iranian regime, but indeed, it appears more heinous because it was issued by a legal institution aimed at defending the violated rights of the oppressed people and not promoting false facts on history and background of people through its legal and international status.

The goal of such statements is to take away the right of self-determination from Ahwazi Arabs .The formal and fixed stands of most Iranian human rights organisations and political nationalists are utterly clear in that they are opposed to recognizing the right for self-determination of non-Persian nations that are caged in so-called the integrity of Iran.

They believe that any recognition of self-determination right for the oppressed non-Persian nations like Ahwazi people and other non-Persian nations will be a start or an excuse for the disintegration of Iran. They must bear in mind that the self _determination is not a sin, but it is the right of a people .The Iranian nationalists whose racism has deafened and blinded them to perceive the inescapable reality are claiming that Ahwazi Arabs, Turk Azari, Kurds, Turkmen and Baluchi are not considered nations, but they are just a group of ethnic minorities. So, they are not qualified to self-determination under the covenants of international law.

   Trivializing human rights violations in Al-Ahwaz

One of the ways that has been used by the Iranian human rights organisations, especially the Solidarity Network for Democracy and Human Rights in Iran, to trivialize and underestimate the human rights abuses committed against Ahwazi Arabs along with other non-Persian ethnic groups is to introduce the human rights violations against political and cultural activists along with persons charged with rape, drug trafficking, other offenses. Listing the political and cultural activists of Ahwazi and other ethnic groups in a statement that from the start is thoroughly focused on violations in central Persian parts and thus minimizes of the extreme pain and suffering of Ahwazis and other ethnic groups for the benefit of Persian activists.   Including their names (Ahwazis) equally next to criminals at the end of the statement is ineffable contemptuous act by Iranian centralist so-called rights advocates against Ahwazi and other ethnicities.

We can see that if a pro-Reformist Iranian activist based in Tehran is detained or summoned to the Intelligence service for interrogation all the Iranian rights organisations start issuing several statements demanding swift actions to be taken   by Amnesty and Human Rights Watch.  Their campaigns will be    followed with constant media coverage till fate and situation of that person become fully apparent; one example is Nasrin Sotoudeh, the pro-Reformist Iranian female civil activist. The number of actions, letters, and statements issued for Nasrin by Iranian rights organisations cannot be compared with the all of the statements that were issued for all Ahwazi political prisoners at the verge of execution.

Above all, when these organisations have taken part in the UN or other human rights meetings, Ahwazi Arab activists are not permitted to be involved or participate as part of the Iranian human rights delegations.

Moreover, according to a number of witnesses who took part in such meetings, Iranian human rights activists, despite having sufficient information about human rights violations in Ahwaz and Baluchistan and other parts of the country, even did not mention any of the abuses against these groups. It seems that the regions of Al- Ahwaz, Baluchistan and other non-Persians regions in the eyes of these Iranian racist activists are safe and secure, and Human rights violations occur exclusively in the capital and center parts of Iran.

Unfortunately, many Persian people and some people who have assimilated into Persian culture are not eager to defend those nations’ rights, though they are violated by the Iranian regime and these nations are treated as second-class citizens. What adds an insult to injury; even Persian human right activists prefer to be silent about this brutality that is carrying out by Iranian regime against Arab cultural and political activists. In 27 November2015, an Ahwazi political prisoner died in prison after spending seven years behind the bars under very suspicious circumstances, and none of those Persian human rights activists condemned it.

This is the ultimate intellectual backwardness of Iranian mentality that at the end of 2015 they do not understand nor respect values such as equality of nations, individual rights, and civic liberties for everyone, and instead view their race as the superior one.

These people are suffering from the disease of racism. They refuse to understand that having human values will identify the superiority of people and distinguish them from others. This is painful and dangerous situation because there are racist people at the center of power of the Iranian regime who have influence in Iranian rights organisations abroad. These elements have been caused so many people to be deprived of their rights and freedoms and be under oppression and discrimination.

In the end, would like to express our gratitude of Human rights watch and Amnesty international organisation and also two or three Iranian human rights organisations that during the last two years have shown an honorable position in defense of political prisoners and cultural activists of Al- Ahwaz.

By -Rahim Hamid