http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/iranaftertherevolution/2008/12/200812691745418706.html
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
22:28 Mecca time, 19:28 GMT
Iranian Arabs seek equal rights
By Ahmed Janabi
Ahwazi Arabs follow both Shia and Sunni Islam
Amnesty International has urged Iran to improve its human rights record
as the country celebrates the 30th anniversary of the Islamic revolution.
Amnesty said that "some sectors of society - including ethnic minorities
- continue to face widespread discrimination, while the situation for other
groups - notably some religious minorities - has significantly worsened".
"Those seen as dissenting from stated or unstated official policies face
severe restrictions on their rights to freedom of belief, expression,
association and assembly," the advocacy group said.
Iranians of Arab descent, known as Ahwazis, who live in the south of the
country, say they are one such ethnic minority who have been persecuted and
marginalised by the government in Tehran.
Seyed Tahir al-Seyed Nima, the chairman of the Ahwaz National Liberation
Movement (ANLM), said Ahwazis consider themselves to be under Iranian
occupation in much the same way Palestinians suffer under Israeli occupation.
He said: "We were an independent state until 1925 when oil was discovered
in our land and our ruler Sheikh Khazal was killed. Our land was then annexed
by the Shah of Iran."
Oil-rich Ahwaz
Iranian Arabs complain of poverty despite
their rich natural resources
The Ahwazis live in the province of Khuzestan, which lies 850km southwest
of Tehran and is considered an area of strategic importance because of its vast
oil reserves and shared border with Iraq.
Ahwazi Arabs have not been included in Iran's economic development and
prosperity derived from oil exports, according to a 2007 Human Rights report
published by civil rights organisations in Europe in coordination with the
Belgium-based Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation.
The 52-page dossier says nearly 25 per cent of Khuzestan's population of
4.35 million live in shanty towns.
A third of its urban population lives in poverty.
"We are discriminated against, when it comes to jobs; we need [a] proper
health care system, and our freedom," Abu Doulab, a member of the Al-Bu Nasir,
a tribe in the town of al-Falahiya in Khuzestan, said.
"We are suffering, poverty is everywhere, our children suffer
malnutrition, we do not have proper education and [as a] result young men
cannot have [a] future."
Reaching out to Arabs
Mohammad Sadiq al-Husseini, an Iranian political analyst who specialises
in national security issues, believes that the focus on urban development has
left some Iranian Arabs feeling disenfranchised.
"I do not think there is an official will to marginalise Iranian Arabs or
deny them their basic rights, however, there is an ongoing problem in Iran and
most of the third world countries," he said.
"These countries lack the proper vision on how to give rural areas their
rights. The general system in third world countries focuses on urban areas."
Al-Husseini believes that administrative inefficiencies are often wrongly
blamed on religious or ethnic discrimination.
"In Iran for example, this problem is not only with Arabs but with Kurds
... and other ethnicities as well, and all these groups live in far rural
areas, and their complaints are usually taken from [a] political point of view."
Al-Musawi acknowledges that Khuzestan does not enjoy its share of the oil
revenues but expects that the Iranian government is working on a project to
rehabilitate and develop the province.
He said: "President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad has received the plan to increase
spending and share of revenues for Khuzestan and he is working on it."
Violent protests
Nevertheless, those in the Ahwazi minority say discrimination has
increased in recent years.
Nicole Choueiry, the Middle East and North Africa press officer for
Amnesty International, says they have documented several reports of abuses
against Ahwazis in recent years.
In April 2005, violent protests broke out in Khuzestan when it was
rumoured that Tehran wanted to disperse the Arab communities throughout Iran.
Fourteen people were killed in bomb explosions in Ahwaz City two months
later and attacks on oil installations in the province led to the arrests of
hundreds of Ahwazi Arabs.
"Ahwazi mercenary"
Iran has sought to carve a larger role for itself in the region
[Reuters]
Geoffrey Cameron, a researcher at the London-based Foreign Policy Centre
(FPC), told Al Jazeera: "A state's sovereignty implies a responsibility to all
of its citizens, and Iran continues to trample on the rights of marginal
groups."
"If Iran wants to claim a leadership role in the international community
it needs to begin by addressing the claims of women and ethnic and religious
minorities to basic civil rights."
However, the government, has categorically denied accusations they have
been repressing the rights of minorities in Ahwaz or other parts of the country.
Amir al-Musawi, an Iranian political analyst and former consultant to the
ministry of defence, says foreign governments have been fuelling dissent in
Ahwaz.
"The Ahwazi people are supporters of the Iranian revolution, but there
are some mercenaries who have been funded by foreign powers to create a
situation where it appears there is a falling out between Iranian Arabs and the
government," he said.
"We know the British in Basra are fuelling some Ahwazi mercenary acts but
we are sure they will get nowhere."
Religious discrimination
Though they comprise a mixed Shia and Sunni community, al-Seyed Nima says
Ahwazis have also suffered religious persecution.
He said Ahwazi Arabs have traditionally attempted to mark Ramadan, the
ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar in which Muslims fast from dawn to
dusk, in conjunction with Sunni Arab countries.
"One of the ways we are able to feel the common bond and ancestry with
our Arab brothers is to celebrate the religious holidays at the end of Ramadan
and the Hajj pilgrimage when they do," al-Seyed Nima said.
"However, during the last Ramadan season, Iranian security forces
arrested people and banned us from marking the holiday unless we followed the
government's Shia calendar" al-Seyed Nima said.
The FPC believes that a group of "hard-line" clerics have enforced their
version of Islam and that this has become the official doctrine of the
government.
"Iran's history is characterised by rich debate over the meaning of Shia
doctrine and the implications of theology, and much of this diversity has been
suffocated in the Islamic Republic," Cameron told Al Jazeera.
"As a consequence, women and minorities are subjected to constraints on
their freedoms: Bahais are treated as 'infidels' without rights, the private
lives of women are regulated by the state, and Sunni Kurds are denied basic
religious freedoms."
Iranian officials were unavailable for comment. Al Jazeera's phone calls
and emails were not returned.
Iranian influence
Some analysts have cautioned, however, that the Ahwazi claims of
religious persecution should not be viewed through the prism of Shia-Sunni
tensions which were exacerbated by the 1980-88 war with neighbouring Iraq.
Abd al-Amir al-Rikabi, an Iraqi politician and author, says some within
the Iranian government believe that the Islamic Republic has a larger
leadership role to play in the Middle East.
He said: "Iranians believe that Arabs led the Muslim nation for 1,000
years, and the Turks had that opportunity for several centuries until World War
One. Tehran thinks the time has come for it to lead the Muslim world."
In recent years, Iran has reached out to its Arab neighbours in the Gulf
seeking to promote improved trade and cultural ties and play a greater regional
role.
Clamouring for leadership of the Muslim world, and indeed the Gulf
region, has led to several conflicts in the past 50 years. In 1980, Iraq
invaded Iran, which had just overthrown its Shah in favour of the Ayatollah
Khomeini, Iran's late leader, and his religious followers.
Iraq had made territorial claims on Khuzestan saying it was a
predominantly Arab region.
However, Saddam Hussein, the then Iraqi president, failed to inspire an
Arab rebellion in southern Iran.
"In 1980 when the Iraqi army attacked Ahwazi cities, Ahwazi Arabs
defended their cities despite the fact they had the chance to get annexed to an
Arab country, Iraq. It is true the idea appealed to some Ahwazis but they were
[a] minority," al-Musawi told Al Jazeera.
Al-Seyed Nima denied that Ahwazis willingly fought with the Iranian army
and said they had been hired as mercenaries or forced to enlist.
Amnesty says it is concerned about the status of several Ahwazi Arabs who
have fled to Iraq and are reportedly to be forcibly repatriated to Iran.
The human rights group has called on Baghdad "not to return anyone to a
country where they would be at risk of torture or other ill-treatment".
Amnesty says it is preparing a 2009 report on the treatment of Ahwazi
Arabs in Iran
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