No country for minorities: The agony of Iran’s ethnic Arabs, Kurds, Baloch and Azeris

An Iranian woman walks past a mural painting illustrating ancient Persian poetry in the Iranian capital Tehran on June 25, 2019. (AFP/File)
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Updated 09 March 2021
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No country for minorities: The agony of Iran’s ethnic Arabs, Kurds, Baloch and Azeris

  • Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Sunnis in remote provinces have repeatedly faced harsh crackdowns
  • Recent unrest in Sistan and Balochistan highlighted the extreme marginalization of non-Persian ethnic groups

WASHINGTON D.C.: Iran’s persecution of political dissidents has been well documented. But the popular conception of the “Iranian people” tends to privilege the grievances of Shiite Muslims and Persian speakers over those of ethnic minorities. Prominence is invariably given to events in Tehran and other urban areas at the expense of happenings in remote provinces.

Overall, non-Persian ethnic groups in Iran make up around 50 percent of the population, yet they are overwhelmingly marginalized.

In recent years, the regime in Tehran and its enablers in the West have assiduously pushed the narrative that the US is the oppressor and the “Iranian people” are the victim. But frequently the narrative is punctured when protests by Iran’s oppressed ethnic minorities spin out of control, such as the violent clashes that recently rocked the country’s impoverished southeast.

Several rights groups reported in a joint statement that authorities shut down the mobile data network in Sistan and Balochistan province, calling the disruptions an apparent “tool to conceal” the government’s harsh crackdown on protests convulsing the area.

Outraged over the shootings of fuel smugglers trying to cross back into Iran from Pakistan, local people had attacked the district governor’s office and stormed two police stations in the city of Saravan.

A low-level insurgency in Sistan and Balochistan involves several militant groups, including those demanding more autonomy for the region. The relationship between its predominantly Sunni Baloch residents and Iran’s Shiite theocracy has long been tense.

Since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, ethnic Kurds, Arabs and Balochis have faced particularly harsh crackdowns by regime security forces. Consequently, more than 40 years on, provinces such as Khuzestan, Kurdistan and Sistan and Balochistan remain some of the most unstable and least developed parts of Iran.




Provinces such as Khuzestan, Kurdistan and Sistan and Balochistan remain some of the most unstable and least developed parts of Iran. (AFP)

Authorities typically claim they are fighting “terrorism” and “extremism” when justifying executions, arbitrary detentions and the use of live ammunition against protesting minorities. Even the most benign of dissident activities — like running a social media page critical of the regime — can carry the death penalty.

“It is a well-known fact that discrimination in Iran is institutionalized through the constitution,” Abdul Sattar Doshouki, director of the London-based Center for Balochistan Studies, said in a report submitted to the UN Human Rights Council Forum on Minority Issues.

“The Iranian regime’s policy in Sistan and Balochistan, and for that matter in other provinces too, is based on racial discrimination, assimilation, linguistic discrimination, religious prejudice and inequality, brutal oppression, deprivation and exclusion of the people who are the majority in their own respective provinces and regions.”

Baloch activists have repeatedly called on the international community and regional powers to press the Iranian government to end its systemic policy of harassment and imprisonment of their local leaders.




Iranian soldiers carrying away an injured comrade at the scene of an attack on a military parade that was marking the anniversary of the outbreak of its devastating 1980-1988 war with Saddam Hussein's Iraq, in the southwestern Iranian city of Ahvaz on September 22, 2018. (AFP)

Ahwazi Arabs, the largest Arab community in Iran, face similar repression. Natives of Khuzestan, they live in extreme poverty, despite the region holding almost 80 percent of Iran’s hydrocarbon resources.

The province has never had an Arab governor and the majority of its top officials are Persians with close ties to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). The official language is Persian; Arabic is not taught in schools.

On Tuesday, the Ahwaz Human Rights Organization reported the execution of four additional political prisoners in the infamous Sepidar prison. Among the few who avoided such a fate is Saleh Hamid, an Ahwazi Arab cultural and political activist who was detained by Iranian authorities in the early 2000s for allegedly distributing anti-regime propaganda.

According to the account he gave to the US-based Iran Human Rights Documentation Center (IHRDC), Hamid traveled to Syria to enroll at the University of Damascus, where he joined the university’s Ahwazi Arab Students’ Association.

Hamid said the student group primarily promoted Ahwazi Arab culture, but he believes he was identified as a subversive by Syrian intelligence because he was detained at Imam Khomeini airport upon his return from vacation.

He was released after four days but rearrested by plainclothes officers at his father’s home in Ahvaz. Hamid spent two months in the IRGC’s detention center in Chaharshir before being released on bail. He fled the country before his trial date.

Hamid believes Tehran’s policy of persecution is designed to wipe out any ethnic identities that cannot be subsumed under the Islamic Republic’s hegemonic ideology. He says the international community, particularly European powers keen to preserve the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, should make the protection of minorities a precondition of any trade agreements with the regime.

“Human rights in Iran are a victim of negotiations on the nuclear file and trade between the EU and Iran,” Hamid told Arab News. “When they negotiate, they forget human rights, about the suppression and crackdown. We want human rights cases to be one of the main negotiating points with the regime. There is discrimination in all fields. If you ask an Arab citizen in Iran if he’s benefited from the oil, they’ll tell you ‘nothing but smoke’.”

Iranian Azerbaijanis, who make up at least 16 percent of the country’s population, are another minority group with a long list of grievances. Although Shiites, many Azeris are viewed by the IRGC with suspicion because of their cultural and linguistic affinities with Turks, in addition to the sense of ethnic kinship they feel with the people of neighboring Azerbaijan.

Proof of the political alienation of Iranian Azerbaijanis came most recently in the form of protests in the northern city of Tabriz during the war between Azerbaijan and Armenia that ended in November. They were angry at Tehran for reportedly sending weapons through its overland border to Armenia for use against Azerbaijan.

Iranian Azeris who speak of their home region as “Guney Azerbaijan,” or south Azerbaijan, are also not allowed to use their mother tongue in educational institutions. Many of them have come to view “reunification” of their historical region with Azerbaijan as the only solution.

The IRGC recently detained and savagely beat an Iranian Azerbaijani activist, Yashar Piri, for writing graffiti demanding greater language rights. The courage shown by Piri was remarkable given that detention, torture or arbitrary execution is the fate that awaits minority-rights activists.

“Persecution of religious minorities is one of the main pillars of this regime,” Masih Alinejad, an Iranian journalist and activist, told Arab News.




Overseas Ahwazis have lobbied governments to take action. (AP)

“For the past 42 years now, the regime has not refrained from resorting to arresting, persecuting, executing and confiscating the properties of these minorities. These minorities have been barred from realizing their full potential and have had limited employment opportunities.

“Sunni Muslim minorities like the Kurds and the Balochis have not fared any better. The regions inhabited by these minorities are some of the poorest and most under-invested by the regime, and these minorities are overrepresented in the execution statistics of the Islamic Republic of Iran. These regions are so poor that many people have to resort to cross-border smuggling of goods in order to eke out a living and feed their families.”

This is certainly the case for Iran’s northwestern Kurds, who make up around 10 percent of the overall population. Concentrated predominantly in the provinces of West Azerbaijan, Kermanshah, Kurdistan and Ilam, many young Kurdish men make a living carrying goods on their backs across the perilous mountain passes of the Zagros into Iraq’s northern Kurdish region.

Known as kolbars, those who survive the bitter cold and sheer drops must also navigate vast minefields and trigger-happy IRGC border guards.

Like other minorities in Iran, Kurds are not permitted to learn their native tongue on the national curriculum. Suspected membership of one of the many Kurdish opposition groups operating along the border also carries the death penalty.

Activists say the terror of executions and the threat of demographic displacement that Iran’s minorities face should be recognized for what they are: crimes against humanity.

They note with dismay that the economic, social and political exclusion of Iran’s ethnic and religious minorities never figures in the diplomatic discourse surrounding the nuclear issue and the IRGC’s regional meddling.

In the final analysis, the activists point out, the defiance of Iran’s minority communities, who are determined to hold on to their identity and traditions, constitutes a much needed check on the absolutism of the Shiite theocracy.

Twitter: @OS26


Netanyahu says ICC warrant won’t stop Israel defending itself

Updated 4 sec ago
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Netanyahu says ICC warrant won’t stop Israel defending itself

“No outrageous anti-Israel decision will prevent us — and it will not prevent me — from continuing to defend our country in every way,” Netanyahu said
The premier is accused alongside his former defense minister Yoav Gallant of “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity“

JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Thursday that an arrest warrant issued against him by the International Criminal Court over his conduct of the Gaza war would not stop him defending Israel.
“No outrageous anti-Israel decision will prevent us — and it will not prevent me — from continuing to defend our country in every way,” Netanyahu said in a video statement. “We will not yield to pressure,” he vowed.
The premier is accused alongside his former defense minister Yoav Gallant of “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity” for Israel’s actions in Gaza.
He described Thursday’s decision as a “dark day in the history of nations.”
“The International Criminal Court in The Hague, which was established to protect humanity, has today become the enemy of humanity,” he said, adding that the accusations were “utterly baseless.”
Israel has been fighting in Gaza since October 2023, when a cross-border attack by Hamas militants resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Its retaliatory campaign has led to the deaths of 44,056 people in Gaza, most of them civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry which the United Nations considers reliable.
UN agencies have warned of a severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza, including possible famine, due to a lack of food and medicines.
The court said it had found “reasonable grounds” to believe Netanyahu and Gallant bore “criminal responsibility” for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare, as well as the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.
Netanyahu said the court was accusing Israel of “fictitious crimes,” while ignoring “the real war crimes, horrific war crimes being committed against us and against many others around the world.”
In addition to Netanyahu and Gallant, the court also issued an arrest warrant for Hamas military wing chief Mohammed Deif, who Israel said was killed in an air strike last July.
Hamas has never confirmed his death.
Netanyahu mocked the court’s decision to issue a warrant for “the body of Mohammed Deif.”

Italy says would have to arrest Netanyahu after ICC warrant

Updated 27 min 34 sec ago
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Italy says would have to arrest Netanyahu after ICC warrant

  • Crosetto believed the ICC was “wrong” to put Netanyahu and Gallant on the same level as Hamas
  • It was not a political choice but Italy was bound as a member of the ICC to act on the court’s warrants

ROME: Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto said Thursday his country would be obliged to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu if he visited, after the International Criminal Court issued a warrant.
The ICC earlier also issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu’s former defense minister, Yoav Gallant, as well as Hamas’s military chief Mohammed Deif.
Crosetto — whose country holds the G7 rotating presidency this year — told RAI television’s Porta a Porta program that he believed the ICC was “wrong” to put Netanyahu and Gallant on the same level as Hamas.
But he said that if Netanyahu or Gallant “were to come to Italy, we would have to arrest them.”
It was not a political choice but Italy was bound as a member of the ICC to act on the court’s warrants, Crosetto said.
Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani had earlier been more cautious, saying: “We support the ICC, while always remembering that the court must play a legal role and not a political role.
“We will evaluate together with our allies what to do and how to interpret this decision.”


Israeli strikes kill 47 people in eastern Lebanon, official says

Updated 21 November 2024
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Israeli strikes kill 47 people in eastern Lebanon, official says

  • Bachir Khodr, governor of Lebanon’s Baalbek-Hermel province, said at least 47 were killed and 22 wounded in Israeli strikes in the Baalbek region
  • In Israel, a 30-year-old man was killed when shrapnel from a rocket struck a playground in the northern town of Nahariya

BEIRUT/JERUSALEM: Israeli strikes killed at least 47 people in eastern Lebanon on Thursday, a Lebanese official said, pressing the campaign against the Iran-backed Hezbollah group as a US mediator sought to advance ceasefire talks in Israel.
US mediator Amos Hochstein, who said a ceasefire was “within our grasp” during a visit to Lebanon on Tuesday, met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz. There were no immediate statements.
Indicating there were still gaps to close, a senior Lebanese official told Reuters that Beirut had sought changes to the US ceasefire proposal, to include ensuring a speedier withdrawal of Israeli forces from south Lebanon.
The diplomacy marks the most serious attempt yet to end the conflict between Israel and the heavily armed, Iran-backed Hezbollah, part of the regional spillover of the Gaza war that erupted more than a year ago.
Bachir Khodr, governor of Lebanon’s Baalbek-Hermel province, said at least 47 were killed and 22 wounded in Israeli strikes in the Baalbek region. Posting on X, he said rescue operations were underway. The region bordering Syria is an area of Lebanon where Shiite Islamist Hezbollah holds sway.
Beirut shook as Israeli airstrikes hit the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs about a dozen times, sending up clouds of debris, in some of the most intense airstrikes yet.
Residents have largely fled the area since Israel went on the offensive against Hezbollah in September.
The Israeli army said its strikes were against Hezbollah infrastructure and that it had mitigated civilian harm through advance warnings and other steps.
In Israel, a 30-year-old man was killed when shrapnel from a rocket struck a playground in the northern town of Nahariya, Israel’s MDA medical service said.
“The Israeli government is not safeguarding my security, my residents or the residents of the north (of Israel). It is not possible to live in such a situation like this,” Nahariya Mayor Ronen Marelly told public broadcaster Kansas
The Israeli military said about 10 rockets were launched from Lebanon toward Nahariya. “Most of the projectiles were intercepted and fallen projectiles were identified,” the military said in a statement.
Channel 12 said three rockets hit the coastal town.
Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television station, citing its correspondent, confirmed rocket fire toward Nahariya and the surrounding area.
White House envoy Hochstein left for Israel after declaring progress in two days of talks in Lebanon with officials including Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, endorsed to negotiate by Hezbollah. Speaking before he left Beirut, Hochstein said he was going to Israel to try to close an agreement if possible.

BATTLE OF KHIYAM
The diplomacy aims to end a conflict that has inflicted massive devastation in Lebanon since Israel began its offensive, mounting airstrikes across wide parts of the country and sending troops into the south.
Footage broadcast by Al Jazeera showed thick smoke rising from the town of Khiyam in southern Lebanon, some 6 km (4 miles) from the border, a focal point of ground battles between Hezbollah fighters and Israeli troops.
Israel says its aim is to secure the return home of tens of thousands of people evacuated from its north due to rocket attacks by Hezbollah, which opened fire in support of Hamas at the start of the Gaza war in October 2023.
Hezbollah, which has suffered major blows since Israel began its offensive in September, has kept up rocket fire into Israel, attacking Tel Aviv this week. Its fighters are battling Israeli troops on the ground in the south.
The casualty toll since Oct. 2023 stands at 3,583 people killed in Lebanon, the Lebanese health ministry says, most of them killed during the Israeli offensive since September. The figures do not distinguish between combatants and civilians. The ministry said 25 fatalities were reported on Wednesday.
Hezbollah strikes have killed more than 100 people in northern Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. They include more than 70 soldiers killed in strikes in northern Israel and the Golan Heights and in combat in southern Lebanon, according to Israel.


Amid Israeli incursion into southern Lebanon, airstrikes hit Beirut’s southern suburbs

Updated 21 November 2024
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Amid Israeli incursion into southern Lebanon, airstrikes hit Beirut’s southern suburbs

  • Lebanon’s official National News Agency reported three raids “within the third round of strikes on the southern suburbs today“
  • AFPTV footage showed columns of smoke rising from the area, usually a densely populated residential district but now largely emptied

BEIRUT: Fierce battles between the Israeli army and Hezbollah erupted in the town of Khiam and on the outskirts of the town of Biyyadah in Lebanon on Thursday.

Israeli resumed intense airstrikes in the morning on Beirut’s southern suburbs and villages in the Baalbek-Hermel governorate, following a pause that coincided with US envoy Amos Hochstein’s 48-hour visit to Beirut before heading to Tel Aviv.

Hezbollah continued its attacks on northern Israel, with rockets reaching Nahariya. According to medics and doctors with Magen David Adom, these attacks “killed a 30-year-old man due to rocket fire.”

Lebanon has been hit by large-scale Israeli attacks since Sept. 23.

Israel has been targeting Hezbollah headquarters, civilian homes in southern villages, pursuing displaced persons to their new locations, and destroying entire neighborhoods in Beirut’s southern suburbs, the southern border region, towns deep in the south, and villages in Baalbek-Hermel.

The attacks have also struck Beirut multiple times. The total death toll since the start of the confrontations has surpassed 3,520, with 14,940 injured.

The clashes in the south have been concentrated between the town of Chamaa and the coastal town of Biyyadah, following the capture of Chamaa.

Hezbollah said that its members “repelled a new Israeli force’s advance attempt at the southern outskirts of Chamaa toward Biyyadah.”

A fierce battle also raged in Khiam, amid reports on Wednesday night suggesting that the town had fallen to the Israeli army. However, Hezbollah reported “ongoing battles on four fronts, employing all types of weapons.”

Security reports indicated that the Israeli army “is conducting large-scale demolitions in Khiam, blowing up houses and residential buildings during its incursion into the town.”

Controlling Khiam is significant, as it is a strategic city located on top of the Al-Hamames Hill, 500 meters above sea level. Khiam is also one of the biggest cities in southern Lebanon in area, which allows the Israeli army to oversee northern Israel on one side and the Golan Heights on the other.

An Israeli raid on the Khardali road, which connects Nabatieh to Marjaayoun and is considered a Hezbollah supply road, blocked it completely.

Meanwhile, Israeli warplanes carried out destructive aerial strikes in stages against Beirut’s southern suburbs on Thursday morning.

The strikes were preceded by a series of evacuation warnings issued to the residents of Ghobeiri, Hadath, Haret Hreik, Bir Abed and Kafaat.

The raids destroyed a significant number of residential buildings and commercial shops. They also reached a building adjacent to a special needs school in Kafaat.

The Israeli army claimed that it “targeted Hezbollah command headquarters and infrastructure in Beirut’s southern suburbs.”

Raids on Younin, northern Bekaa, killed at least four people after they targeted an inhabited house without prior warning.

The Israeli raids included Brital, Makneh, Nahleh, Chaat in the Anti-Lebanon mountains, and Bouday in the western mountain range.

Dozens of citizens received mysterious calls on Wednesday night instructing them to evacuate their homes in Beirut’s neighborhoods and Mount Lebanon, including Mazraat Yachouh in Metn, where there is no Hezbollah presence.

The calls caused confusion, as residents of entire neighborhoods waited on the streets for officials confirmations. The calls were seen as “part of a psychological warfare.”

On the eve of Lebanon’s 81st Independence Day, army chief Joseph Aoun said that “Lebanon will always revolt against its enemies and those who mess with its safety and sovereignty, notably the Israeli enemy.”

Aoun said that the anniversary came amid a destructive and brutal war waged by the Israeli enemy for more than a year, resulting in thousands being wounded, and the displacement of people from their villages and towns in the south, the Bekaa and Beirut.

“As the enemy persists in its daily violations and aggressions, efforts are intensifying to reach a ceasefire that would bring calm to our country, paving the way for the return of our people in the south to their land and the rest of the displaced to their homes.”

Aoun said that the army was “still deployed in the south, where soldiers make sacrifices and give their lives for Lebanon. We will not abandon it because it is an integral part of national sovereignty, and it operates in coordination with UNIFIL under the framework of Resolution 1701. The army also stands by its people and citizens, fulfilling its national duty and continuing its missions despite challenges and dangers.”

He said that “there is no turning back, and there is no fear for the army, which will remain steadfast by the side of the Lebanese despite all circumstances, protecting Lebanon and defending its security, stability and sovereignty. The army will continue to embrace all Lebanese from different backgrounds, standing equally by each one of them.”


Libya’s Derna hosts theater festival year after flash flood

Updated 21 November 2024
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Libya’s Derna hosts theater festival year after flash flood

  • Nizar Al-Aned, artistic director of the Derna Festival, said organizers had “insisted that the festival take place, even if the theater is still under construction” to rebuild it
  • Tunisian comedian Abir Smiti said it was her first time at the event

DERNA, Libya: A year after a flash flood ripped through Derna and killed thousands of people, the coastal Libyan city is hosting a theater festival with a message of hope.
The city in the war-torn country’s east is still reeling from the flooding that destroyed historic buildings, including Libya’s oldest theater where the festival was held in previous years.
Nizar Al-Aned, artistic director of the Derna Festival, said organizers had “insisted that the festival take place, even if the theater is still under construction” to rebuild it.
Now, back after a pause due to the September 2023 floods, the festival’s sixth edition is being held this week under the slogan: “Derna is back, Derna is hope.”
With five theater troupes from Libya, and one each from neighboring Egypt and Tunisia, the event has drawn artists, comedians and visitors from across the Arab world.
Tunisian comedian Abir Smiti said it was her first time at the event.
“To me, Derna is a discovery,” she told AFP.
“When you just arrive, you can feel the pain, but at the same time there’s joy. You can feel how everyone has hope.”
Once home to about 120,000 inhabitants, the wall of water that swept through Derna last year killed nearly 4,000 people, left thousands missing and displaced more than 40,000 others, according to the United Nations.
It was the result of extreme rainfall from hurricane-strength Storm Daniel, which had caused two dams to burst inland from the city that lies some 1,300 kilometers (800 miles) east of the capital Tripoli.
Libya is still grappling with the aftermath of the 2011 NATO-backed uprising that toppled long-time dictator Muammar Qaddafi.
The chaos that ensued saw the rise of jihadist movements, with Derna coming under the control of Al-Qaeda and later the Daesh group before they were chased out by 2018.
The North African country remains split between two rival administrations.
The divisions have complicated the emergency response and reconstruction efforts.
Derna is under the eastern administration backed by military strongman Khalifa Haftar, whose son Belgacem Haftar has been the figurehead for reconstruction in the city.
At the theater festival, jury member Hanane Chouehidi told AFP that “despite the drama, the deaths and the destruction,” she was confident Derna could be rebuilt.
“Derna deserves to be beautiful, just as its residents deserve to be happy,” she said.