Distinguished members of the House of Commons, ladies and gentlemen, as most teenagers in Canada are getting ready for their summer break, Azerbaijani-Iranian Mohammad-Reza Avaz-Pour, who is just 17, will soon start serving his 15-month prison sentence. This young activist is no stranger to detention, imprisonment, and torture. Since the age of 13, he has been arrested and tortured repeatedly for the simple non-violent act of stating that his mother tongue will not die.
Five university activists, Huseyin Huseyni, Asghar Akbarzade, Ardashir Karimi, Behruz Alizade, and journalist Rahim Ghulami, were sentenced to five years' imprisonment by the Iranian revolutionary court on February 2, 2009, for the simple act of promoting their linguistic rights. Their trials were not published and were held without a lawyer present. They were charged with establishing illegal groups with the intention of disturbing national security.
These activists will be sent far away from their homes to dangerous prisons all over the country. This exile will prevent family visits, stop the flow of information about their conditions and basic welfare, and disconnect them from the outside world. It may sound ironic to say that their families are lucky, but at least they will know where their loved ones are. On June 11, 2008, the worst fear of one family came true. Twenty days after Ferhad Mohseni was arrested by officers of the Iranian intelligence, his tortured body was handed over to his family for immediate burial. He was 25 years old.
As Iran's uranium enrichment program continues to be a focus of international attention, the human rights situation in Iran continues to deteriorate. While the activities of various student and women's rights movements, as well as individual cases of journalists, writers, scholars, and human rights defenders are somewhat known to the outside world, regrettably this is not the case with minoritized non-Persian communities. The Azerbaijanis and other non-Persian ethnic groups are Iran's invisible population. For over 80 years, all non-Persian minorities in Iran have been victims of serious human rights violations. They have endured racial discrimination, forced assimilation, and suppression of their language and culture under both the Pahlavi and Islamic governments.
However, as a person of Azerbaijani background, I'm here to speak about this particular community. The minority community might well be a numerical majority but is kept in a minority situation in terms of access to power and resources. Since early childhood, I have been exposed to racial discrimination against the ethnic group into which I was born.
As a schoolgirl, I was not allowed to speak my mother tongue, Azerbaijani Turkic. I never saw textbooks written in my language. I was not taught to read and write my language or learn about my culture and history, as Iran's only official language, Farsi, the Persian language, was imposed on us. We were forced to learn the Persian language, Persian history, and Persian culture as the common identity of all Iranians.
I have experienced my ethnic group routinely and openly insulted on radio, television, and in the state-run national press. Even now, my people are depicted as intellectually challenged and are dehumanized as donkeys and cockroaches.
Racial discrimination in Iran is still with us. Banning of all non-Farsi languages continues. Ethnic groups, particularly Turks and Semites, are dehumanized. Iranian regimes have been the biggest threat to the realization of human rights for Azerbaijanis in Iran. Paralleling the internal repression by the government, the Azerbaijanis' struggle is ignored by the international community and remains invisible to western media such as the BBC and the European broadcasts in Persian. Even Iranian human rights activists often fail to mention Azerbaijanis and other minorities when they speak of human rights violations in Iran.
About three years ago, after hearing of widespread arrests in the Azerbaijani region of Iran and sensing a total indifference on the part of human rights groups toward all Azerbaijani cases, I came to the realization that I must take up the cause. Straightaway I could see the effects of repression and forced assimilation that the Azerbaijanis were subjected to in the course of the last century. I and others who have spoken about Azerbaijani rights have been regularly denounced as traitors and separatists and have faced insults and threats, not only by members of dominant Persian groups but also by some assimilated Persianized members of the minority communities.
Since the May 2006 uprising in the Azerbaijani region of Iran, Azerbaijani activists have been hit hard. Many are in prison, some are missing, and as I mentioned before, some were killed. Those of us fortunate enough to live in societies where we are entitled to full political rights can reach out to help the less fortunate. We are asking the international community to be aware of the situation in Iran and to take action on behalf of those who have no voice.
When I ask activists or family members who have lost a loved one or have someone in prison if they have a message, they ask me to speak about their struggle for freedom of expression, democracy, and human rights. But for them as Azerbaijanis, their struggle is also about eliminating racial discrimination and having the right to their own language and culture. Their message can be summarized in these words by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, the imprisoned Burmese leader: “Please use your liberty to promote ours”.
Thank you very much.