Mona Silavi fromAhwazi women organisation "Napiraso" speaks at 10th UN Forum on #MinorityIssues
As I understand this Forum is intended to be a dialogue, so I will put my speech aside and I would say do not get surprised if we minorities get nervous if we do not get our 2 minutes. Most of minorities here which work as NGOs are denied ECOSOC status, so only once a year for 2 minutes we have the chance to speak.
For this reason we get nervous if we do not get our 2 minutes.
We get nervous if we can not talk within the subject that have been chosen for this forum, because it is hard for me to know there is a young Ahwazi waiting for execution while Iam sitting here and talking about social media.
It is hard Believe me it is hard. I am happy that Iranian delegation is here , I would like them to take note of this name Yousef son of Abbas silavi , my father, victim of enforced disappearance since 2009 .
He was lost and last seen in my homeland of Ahwaz. It makes wonder, Iran a country with more than 12 parallel security service bodies, why can not they provide us with any information about one Arab citizen that went missing years ago.
If my father is not kidnaped due to political motivation then why my mother is denied a passport to leave the country? I hope that they can give me some answers because my mother keeps on searching relentlessly and authorities inside Iran do not give her any information.
So please excuse us minorities if we get nervous if we want our 2 minutes. We are denied the ECOSOC, so we can not enter UN to speak out loud about our problems.
For the first time minorities from all around the world gathered to make their own United Nations (UNPO) Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation which has more than 40 minority members and even this NGO is denied the ECOSOC.
We minorities have been working together since 1991 when UN had not yet recognised the right of minorities. This forum started its work only 10 years ago in 2007.
So excuse us if we talk politics! Please let me use my 2 minute to express my opinion freely.
Let me tell the Iranian delegation that I can provide them with detailed reports of Ahwazi Arab students that can not study because there are no schools in their villages despite the fact that there are huge oil wells in the backyard of their houses, and they have to deal with the oil spill that destroys their farms and kills their animals and poisons their water.
I do not believe the claim that Iran does not have enough resources to combat these issues. According to UN reports, Iranian government spent up to 15 billion$ a year for the past 6 years in order to keep Bashar Assad in power .
These resources are the right of Iranian people that should be spend in development and respect the right of every citizens.
