Photos and resolution of peaceful demonstration in London against BBC
BayBak, Azerbaijan | 1464 days ago | Wednesday, 20th May , 2009 , 01:38 [am] | Azerbaijan
 |
. | This peaceful demonstration has been organised by the South Azerbaijanis’ Association (SAA-UK), in front of the BBC Bush House on Monday the 18th May 2009, 2 – 4 pm, in order to:
1. Highlight the plight of South Azerbaijanis Turkic people of Iran, who constitute the majority ethnicity of country’s seventy million populations. |
Iran Is Not Persia
Since the constitution revolution between 1905 and 1911 and seize of power by the dictator Reza-Khan (in the west known as Shah of Iran) in 1925, Non-Persian nations of Iran (Azerbaijanis, Kurds, Arabs, Baluchis, Turkmens, and others _ please see the attached ethnologic map) have been subjected to oppression, untold and unheard atrocities, arbitrary discriminations and forceful assimilation.
Non-Persian nations in Iran constitute more than 67% of Iran’s population and yet they are degraded to second class citizens and are deprived of their basic human rights. Any attempts to gain some rights are brutally dealt with by the Iranian regime. Non-Persian nations in Iran have no single school in their mother language and they are condemned to be educated in Farsi where the people whose mother language is Farsi, form only about 33% of the Iranian populations. This has been the case for almost about a century in Iran ruled by the Fascist and Chauvinistic regimes.
The story of the Non-Persian nations in Iran has never been told and their history never heard of both in the west and the east, even within Iran itself. In the past century, the Iranian regimes have fabricated a false history of Iran and by spending a considerable portion of country’s budget, have tricked the world to believe that all Iranians are of the Persian origin! They have even influenced most of the books written in the west on Iran, and yet Iran is a Multi-National country with Persians the second largest ethnic group after the Azerbaijanis.
Although after Islamic revolution, country’s constitution changed to reflect the reality of multi-nationalism in the country, the Non-Persian nations basic human rights continue being ignored and thus are banned from education in their mother language. They are not allowed to set up even a small private institution to learn how to read and write in their own mother language. They are deliberately and forcefully kept illiterate in their mother language, by reigning regimes and yet they each have inherited a rich and dynamic language which has been spoken for thousands of years.
The analogy of what is happening to Non-Persians in Iran is the banning the Welsh people from learning and using the Welsh language in Wales, and forcing them to accept that they are of the English origin and must abandon their Welsh identity, yet in a much larger and greater scale in Iran, and it goes even further: As part of the Persian chauvinistic policies, children are often humiliated and punished for speaking in their mother language in schools! They are afflicted by this barbaric behaviour and traumatised for life. They often think: why they were not born as Persians!? Forceful assimilation, humiliation of the Non-Persians, punishment for being of a Non-Persian origin and a calculated cultural and linguistic genocide continue ignoring the most basic human rights in Iran. IT MUST STOP.
In Southern Azerbaijan in Iran, men and women are working peacefully and often at great risk to themselves and their families to secure human rights and fundamental freedoms to follow their consciences and speak their minds without fear, to choose those who would govern them and hold their leaders accountable and to achieve equal justice under the law.
The South Azerbaijanis in Iran believe that it is the duty of freedom loving and free nations of the world to support these courageous men and women and help them to achieve the justice they deserve as humans.
The Azerbaijani Human rights activists lack resources to challenge the oppressive Iranian regime using the very basic means of communication while risking their lives. The movement for national rights in Iran lacks international experience or any support from outside, but still constitutes the strongest challenge to the Iranian regime. The Western policy toward Iran is Tehran-centric; while the biggest challenge for the Iranian regime is in the provinces where ethnic minorities are concentrated.
We are asking for support to reach Azerbaijanis and other minorities in Iran. They need to know that the world is paying attention to them. They need to know that putting their lives at risk for equal rights is not in vain. They need hope, and they are looking to the international community for it.
Knowing they have international support will give them the strength to continue fighting for equal rights, and that means greater stability and democracy for Iran and the wider Middle East. Iranian minorities are agents of change in a country that needs it badly. They are struggling for a positive transformation in Iran; and they need all the help they can get.
This peaceful demonstration has been organised by the South Azerbaijanis’ Association (SAA-UK), in front of the BBC Bush House on Monday the 18th May 2009, 2 – 4 pm, in order to:
1. Highlight the plight of South Azerbaijanis Turkic people of Iran, who constitute the majority ethnicity of country’s seventy million populations.
2. Protest against the news censorship and discrimination on covering the views of Non-Persians of Iran in general, and South Azerbaijanis in particular by the BBC Persian Radio and TV Services.
Thank you
Iran is Not Persia
BBC Persian News, Censoring non-persian views
BBC Persian, Tell the truth, Show the news
BBC Persian, Stop hiding the facts
Stop censoring news about non-persian Iranians
BBC Persian, Broadcast the facts about South Azerbaijan
, Voice of a Nation[1] Print
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