40-year-old Ahwazi Arab poet Ali Matroudi, who is married with three children has been sentenced to one-year imprisonment on May 18, 2016, by the Shadegan (Falahiyeh in Arabic) revolutionary court on questionable charges associated with his poem, which is viewed by the Iranian regime as an attempt to revive Arabic awareness among Alahwazi Arabs. Ali, along with other Ahwazi poets, was arrested by the regime’s intelligence forces for their participation in a commemoration of the death of Mollah Fadhil Sakrani; a well-respected poet in the region in December 2013. Due to the importance of the event and Sakrani's excellent reputation, some government officials were in the audience to pay their respects. However, Ali’s epics poems triggered their anti-Arabs feelings. Shortly after the end of the event, Ali was detained and confined in an intelligence office for about 20 days. Ali was released on bail on condition that he would not participate in a similar event again. He still faces one-year imprisonment. After his release from detention, Ali decided to get away from his province Alahwaz and to move to another province, Yazd, to escape the pressure exerted by the security forces against his life and his family. Last week Ali Matroudi were summoned again to stand before the revolutionary court in Shadegan (Falahiyeh) to serve a year in prison in the Sheyban prison (5 km north Ahwaz city). The revolutionary court of Shadegan (Falahiyeh) has threatened him to seize his property if he refuses to accept the court decision. AHRO denounces the outrageous and unfair verdict issued against Ali Matroudi and calls on PEN International and all human right organizations to condemn Iranian regime’s oppressive measures taken against Ahwazis. It also calls for Matroudi’s release from prison and allowing him freedom of expression. This arrest is part of a series of arrests of Ahwazi intellectuals, as well as social, political and human rights activists. These increasingly-intense crackdown against Ahwazis is part of the so-called “Security Project;” the regime’s secret policy to change the demographic of the Ahwazi Arab homeland in favour on non-Arabs newcomers. Ahwaz Human Rights Organization (AHRO)
International human rights observers, including the IHRDC, stated that the country’s estimated two million Ahvazi Arabs faced continued oppression and discrimination.
Activists received a copy of the document titled “Comprehensive Security Project of Khozestan".
Ahwaz Human Rights Organization (AHRO) received a copy of this document which describes a detailed security plan aimed at stifling the Ahwazi national rights movement through various means including "Suppressing political movements”, “continuing with the plan of demographic change and forcing the indigenous Arabs from their lands", and resettling more Persians and other non-Arab immigrants from other areas of Iran into the province.
The document confirms the fact that "discrimination, ethic persecution and marginalization against Arabs" would lead to "Widespread protests", and that a series of security measures, plans and projects need to be introduced in order to prevent any protests, like the ones that have taken place previously in the province, from happening.
The project divides the “challenges” facing the Iranian government into five categories: political, cultural, social, economic and security, and proposes solutions that concentrate on the containment of Ahwazi Arab demands and dissolving their political movements and demands via other Iranian political parties loyal to the current Iranian regime and believing in the concept of the Islamic Republic, and the principle of "welayat-Al Faqih"(Governance of the Islamic jurist). According to the leaked document the ”security project” was approved on 27th April 2014 during a meeting of the high committee tasked by the Supreme Council for National Security with implementing this project. The meeting was chaired by Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli, the Iranian Interior Minister under Hassan Rouhani’s government. The high committee which is to supervise the implementation of the security project, includes Eshaq Jahangiri, first assistant to Iran's president, the assistant to Interior Minister, assistant to the Minister of Intelligence and Security Affairs, the commander of the Internal Security Forces in Al-Ahwaz, and in addition to the Chairman of radio and television broadcasting, the governor of Khozestan province (Al-Ahwaz), and other members whose names were not disclosed. According to the document, the high committee set up 5 committees to implement the project in the province within five years (from 2014 to 2019). Their task would be to implement security instructions and recommendations, and eliminate threats and confront challenges. Every six months these committees would present a report of their activities to Ali Shamkhani, General Secretary of the Supreme Council for National Security of Iran, who is the senior supervisor on the implementation of this project. Perhaps the most important and dangerous of the provisions incorporated in this project is the planned construction of "new settlements and cities" to resettle large numbers of Persian and other predominantly non-Arab immigrants from other areas of Iran in the region as a means of completely changing its demographic composition in favor of non-Arab people. This plan for demographic change in the province is a continuing policy of the central government which was mentioned in a leaked document in 2005. It was signed by Mohammad Abtahy, Director of the office of the former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami. This leaked document led to a massive uprising called "intefazat Nisan", or "April uprising", during which dozens of civilians were killed by police and security forces, despite Abtahy's denial of the document. The AHRO emphasizes the fact that demographic change in the province is an ongoing process and being implemented on a large scale. One of the sections of the project emphasizes the necessity of "decreasing the immigration of Persians out of Al-Ahwaz and increasing immigration toward the province from other parts of Iran so the demographic change can be implemented in the long term at the lowest cost". This goal is at present being rigorously implemented in Al-Ahwaz. The document also recommends monitoring the human rights and diplomatic activities of Ahwazi people inside and outside of Iran, and following their efforts to present their case to the international community and receive international assistance and support. Orders have been given to repress and eradicate any demands of federalization or independence and to limit any other political activities to the framework of Iranian government and its system. It also recommends establishing television channels in Arabic language funded by the government to thwart projects which they call "nationalist movements," by Arabic political and human rights organizations, and by "Wahhabis", the term they use to refer to Ahwazi people who are converted from the Shia to the Sunni sect of Islam. The document also recommends using Shia Iraqi militants and Hazbollah of Lebanon and other fighting militants in Syria to assist in implementing the project. One of the sections of the document recommends allocating a budget for the project from the oil revenues, 90% of which is produced in Al -Ahwaz. In addition, the Council for National Security recommends using benefits from petrochemicals companies and revenues from the free zone of Shat Al-Arab to finance the project. The AHRO condemns this dangerous project whose sole aim is the ethnic cleansing of Ahwazi Arabs through forced migration and the elimination of their existence in the province. The AHRO has contacted international organizations and bodies, especially the Human Rights Council, Indigenous Peoples Commission and the Minority Forum at the United Nations to take a stand against this project and its implications for the indigenous people living in this region. The AHRO calls on Ahmed Shahid, the Special Rapporteur for Human Rights for Iran, for urgent action to stop this criminal scheme against Ahwazi Arabs, and compel Iran to stop these racist policies which are contrary to international law and treaties. Ahwaz Human Rights Organization (AHRO) 2 April 2014
Ahwaz Human Rights Organization (AHRO) strongly condemns the recent unfair and controversial mass executions and imprisonments verdicts against Ahwazi political activists by the revolutionary court of Ahwaz. The court has confirmed the death penalty against Qais Abidawi and his brother Ahmad Abidawi and their cousin; Sajjad Abidawi, whom all from Hamidia city (20KM from Ahwaz). Also, the same court has issued unjust verdicts against Mohammad Helfi to 23 years and Mehdi Sayahi to 35 years to both spend their imprisonment in the city of Yazd and Mehdi Moarabi and Ali Abidawi, who both have to spend 25 years in prison. Despite the Iranian regime has previously arrested four people on the same charge and has sentenced one to life imprisonment and the rest to exile or 20 years in prison but the recent sentences emerged how the regime uses the judiciary system as instrument to intimidate, stop or remove any #Ahwazi peaceful activist disregarding of their way of expressing their human rights demands. The head of judicial regime department in Ahwaz (Khuzestan) Farhad Afshar Nia, in his last media statement, announced that the regime soon will carry out executions against those so-called “Mohareb” (enmity with God) or undermining the national security. The #Ahwaz_Human_Rights Organization while vehemently condemns such unjust sentences against humanity which is contrary to the universal human rights declaration, it urges all international human rights organizations and states to intervene to enforce Iranian regime to halt crimes against Ahwazi people and calls for a fair and international level public re-trial for Ahwazi detainees. Ahwaz Human Rights Organisation-AHRO 2 April 2016
Islamic Republic of Iran: Amnesty International Report 2014/15
Head of state: Ayatollah Sayed 'Ali Khamenei (Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran)
Head of government: Hassan Rouhani (President)
The authorities restricted freedoms of expression, association and assembly, arresting, detaining and prosecuting in unfair trials minority and women’s rights activists, journalists, human rights defenders and others who voiced dissent.
Ban Ki-moon the Secretary General of the United Nation ,denounced the continuous suppression and persecution of Arab minority by Tehran in his report during the Seventieth session of the UN General Assembly which was held in New York .
An Ahwazi cultural festival was held in the city of Malmo –south of Sweden ,on Sunday evening of January 18th 2015.
The aim of this festival was introducing the Arab people of Ahwaz, their identity, heritage and history to the Swedish people, and the Arab community leaving in Sweden.
The bodies of Hashem Shaabami and Hadi Rashedi ,two cultural activists have been discovered by local residents eleven months after their secret execution.
Ahwazi human rights activists reported that local eyewitnesses from "Joveji" village, 7 kilometers away from Ahwaz, south east of "Rahmormoz" city testified that the Iranian security forces buried the bodies of the activists near their village last winter.
The representatives of non-Persian ethnicities and religious minorities in Iran met with the United States officials to discuss their causes in Washington last week.
The delegation included representatives of political parties and human rights organizations of minorities in Iran, including the Ahwazi Arabs, Baluchis, Kurds and Azeris..
The members of this board: Dr. Mohamad Hasan Husseinbar from Baluch community and a prominent human rights advocate, Dr.Karim Banisaeed Abdian the chief executive of Ahwaz Human Rights Organization (AHRO),Habib Azarsina representatives of Azeri community and Kamran Belnor from Kurdistan Democratic Party.
