Several northwestern cities in Iran have recently been rocked by demonstrations and riots by ethnic Azerbaijani citizens. Posted on 06/02/2006 11:52:40 AM PDT by M. Espinola
Several northwestern cities in Iran have recently been rocked by demonstrations and riots by ethnic Azerbaijani citizens.
They were protesting a cartoon published in an official government newspaper that depicted the Azerbaijani minority as a cockroach and instructed people to deny it food until it learns to speak Persian.
Last Sunday, thousands of Iranian Azerbaijanis gathered outside Parliament in Tehran to chant in their native Turkic language and demand the rights to operate schools in their own language. As his police forces heavy-handedly dispersed the demonstrators, Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, praised the loyalty of the Azerbaijani citizens and thanked them for "supporting the Islamic Revolution." The massive Azerbaijani response to the cartoon is the latest in a string of ethnically based protests and violence that have occurred in Iran this year, highlighting the country's multiethnic nature, which is little appreciated in the West.
Fully half of Iran's population is non-Persian.
Western policy makers need to take into account the fact that ethnic politics influences Iran's foreign policy choices and will be a factor in the current regime's future stability. Azerbaijanis, Kurds, Arabs, Turkmen and Baluch are concentrated on Iran's peripheries, sharing ties with people in neighboring Azerbaijan, Iraq, Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Since ethnic Azerbaijanis make up a third of Iran's population, for example, Tehran is fearful that neighboring Azerbaijan could become a source of irredentism for its own Azerbaijani population.
In the last six months, at least 30 people have died and hundreds have been arrested in scores of violent confrontations between government forces and Kurds, who make up close to 10 percent of the population of Iran.
(Excerpt) Read more at iht.com ...
Couldn't happen to a more worthy regime...
I hope civil war occurs.
Just what Iran needs, some more "volatility".
Oi vey!
Faster, faster pussycat.
Ditto, ditto :)
Iran appears to have a complex ethnic mix. Apparently, these people have been able to live in one country for centuries. Why is the ethnic problem more of a problem today?
"Iran appears to have a complex ethnic mix. Apparently, these people have been able to live in one country for centuries. Why is the ethnic problem more of a problem today?"
Probably foreign intelligence agencies.
Apparently you are unable to differentiate between different ethnicities uniting into one state and different ethnicities being forced into one state, and often to move into another one and abandon their culture and language by the Soviet Union and subsequently by nationalist Soviet republics.
Great post !
One reason is the ongoing brutal treatment of non-Shi'ite, non-Persian minorities by the current Ahmadinejad régime, and dating all the way back to the 'allowed Carter takeover' of Iran by Khomeini's wild anti-Western horde.
More links:
The Iranian Majlis or Parliament has reportedly passed (now disputed) a law requiring that, “Jews would have to sew a yellow strip of cloth on the front of their clothes, while Christians would wear red badges and Zoroastrians would be forced to wear blue cloth.” An outraged Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Weisenthal Institute immediately responded to the provisions for Jews:
“This is reminiscent of the Holocaust…Iran is moving closer and closer to the ideology of the Nazis.”
Iran: Ethnic Unrest Signals Greater Problems
Police shoot dead protesters in northwest Iran
Iraqi Kurds rally to support Iranian brethren
Iran Revolutionary Guards’ brutality against Kurds backfires
Here are some other related links:
Ethnic Upheaval Boosts Calls to Oust Iranian Regime
Iran: Ethnic tensions and the regime’s last stand
Mullahs’ regime displays fear of popular uprisings in Azeri provinces
South Azerbaijan National Freedom Army established in Iran
Iranian Turkmens: We consider the insult to the Azeri people as done to us
They also have issues with their Kurds, as well as issues between Arabs and Persians
Very true.
Great articles. Let's hope we can see the undoing of this evil man and his evil regime.
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