By Rahim Hamid

Ahwazi football fans on Friday braved the wrath of the Iranian regime to raise their voices for

freedom, unfurling banners demanding freedom and human rights at a match at Al-Ghadir

stadium in the region’s eponymous capital Ahwaz, and holding Ahwazi national celebration in

the streets of the city following the championship of Esteghlal Ahwaz in Iran Premier Football

League.

At the match between Esteghlal Ahwaz and Zob Ahan Isfahan(Esteghlal won 2-0), fans of Esteghlal Ahwaz team took the opportunity to stand up for Ahwazi rights, now brutally denied by successive Iranian regimes for 91 years.

With all forms of political activism and demonstrations banned by the regime and Ahwazis brutally penalised for flying their own flag or even using their native Arabic language and wearing their traditional Arab garments, the protesters risked arrest, imprisonment and worse (with many Ahwazi activists executed, usually on ludicrous charges like ‘Moharebeh’ or ‘enmity to God’) simply to demand their rights. Despite these dangers, many of football fans wore their traditional Arab garb, refusing to be cowed by the regime’s unrelenting and vicious efforts to quash any expressions of Arab identity.

Among the banners and posters unfurled by fans at the game were some protesting against the regime’s transfer of water from the once-lush region’s rivers to Persian areas, which is leading

to widespread desertification. There were unconfirmed reports that some of the protesters at the match even pulled down the Iranian flag flying over the stadium, a grave offense in the eyes

of the supremacist ruling theocratic regime.

The celebration continued after the match, with Ahwazis taking to the streets of the capital to

chant in support of freedom and human rights, with some defiantly reciting poetry about the

region’s historic Arab identity, which is denied by the regime. It should be stressed that the

regime savagely punishes all assertions of Ahwazi identity, with even peaceful protests and

expressions of pride in Ahwazi Arab identity viewed by Tehran as signs of dangerous

insurrection.