PRESENTATION OF DIPLOMATIC COMMISSION OF SOUTH AZERBAIJAN TO THE CONGRESS OF UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
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By Dr. ALIREZA NAZMI
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MAY 30th, 2006

Your Excellencies,

I am grateful to the Congress and freedom loving people of the United States for providing me the opportunity to share with you about the human suffering in South Azerbaijan, located in northwest of Iran.


For the last two weeks, Azerbaijani Turks of Iran have been flooding the streets of Azerbaijan’s cities and Tehran, protesting against inhumane treatment of Azerbaijani Turks in Iran in the hands of the totalitarian dictator regime of the Islamic Republic.

The demonstrations are still peaceful, civil and non-violent. Unfortunately, the present regime needs an excuse to crush our legal rights to demonstrate.

This is being done by planting infiltrators who act illegally and violently and thus give the government a perfect excuse to crush our movement. The government forces have opened fire on peaceful demonstrations.

For the last 85 years, the Pahlavi regime which was inspired by Hitler attempted to create an Aryan haven. They changed the name of the country from Persia to Iran, which means nation of Aryans. Consequently Azerbaijani Turks as well as other ethnicities have been deprived of their basic human rights.

Their culture is denied, their language is forbidden, their history is falsified, their dignity is insulted, and finally, their whole being is humiliated. Now they are saying enough is enough.

Azerbaijani Turks are in the streets demanding equal rights, self determination, and recognition of our identity, language, and culture.

Tens of martyrs, hundreds of wounded, and thousands of illegal arrests, have not stopped us and shall not, until our goal is accomplished. We are determined to gain the right of self-determination granted to nations under the U.N. Article 1541.

I am here today to ask for American people’s support in this cause of freedom and justice to put a stop to the Aryan apartheid and religious extremist policies of Tehran.

Mr. Maurice Capithorn, a special representative of the UN Commission on Human Rights, in his speech at the 58th session of the Commission on April 16th, 2002, in Geneva, said that the Azerbaijanis are Iran’s biggest ethnic group and may number at 30 million people.

Mr. Capithorn also pointed to serious instances of human rights abuses of Iran’s Azerbaijani population, such as:

Forced assimilation policies to change the ethnic identity

Illegal misappropriation of Azerbaijani territories to Persian provinces such as Astara, Anzali and Bijar

Absolute economic deprivation

Territorial partitioning: dividing Azerbaijan into provinces such as East Azerbaijan, West Azerbaijan, Ardabil, Zanjan, Erak, Hamedon, Gazvin

Arresting and torturing Azerbaijani national movement activists under false and dubious accusations

Depriving Azerbaijani Turks from having any public or private media or public education in our own language. The only NGO internet site of 30 million people “Shams Tabriz” was blocked last week.

We have felt the breeze of ethnic freedom that our neighboring countries have been enjoying. We want nothing more than human rights – nothing more than what the UN charters advocates.

Unfortunately Voice of America and Radio Farda have done nothing to give voice to our people. They are monopolized by the Pan Farsist Iranians, regardless of their ethnic origin. In order to survive economically or socially in Iran, it is a must to sell out one’s own ethnicity, and become “Persianized”. These radio shows resort to finding those few self assimilated ethnic representatives or staging infomercials.

Your Excellencies,

The picture is grim -- as it is in many parts of the world. You might be wondering why you should care. What is of interest to the U.S. in this conflict.

We believe that it is in our common interest to give the Iranian ethnic groups, which comprise 65% of the population, rights of self-determination. Incidentally, this is a necessary component of having a stable Iran, which we all should care about. Without such recognition to the ethnic groups, there will not be any positive changes in Iran. Without these changes, there can’t exist a stable Iran, and without a stable Iran, there will not be a stable Middle East.

Iran’s so called “opposition groups” may well be opposed to the current government but they do not represent nor are they seeking rights for the ethnic groups.

They possess “pan Farsisit Aryan” ideologies under the cover of “pan Iranist” and seek only to build a chauvinistic nation of one race, one blood, one language and one culture.

This obsolete ideology is not accepted by the majority of people and can not co-exist in a civil multi-national society. That is precisely the reason why they have been unable to remove the mullahs from power for the last 28 years.

There is no incentive for people to support the ‘opposition’ which would only transfer power from one racist regime to another. What the people are demanding is simply equitable rights for all ethnicities and religions across the country.

By supporting the South Azerbaijani and other ethnic national movements, the U.S. can make a meaningful contribution toward a democratic Middle East and at the same time gain a very important ally and potential partner for peace and stability in this troubled yet very sensitive part of the world.

Our people, today, right now, before it is too late, are looking for your support. In our region, which sits between the Caucus and the Gulf, and also between Central Asia and the Aegean Sea, we can not afford instability, civil war, perhaps, Balkanization, or worse yet, starting the second cold war.

Your Excellencies, please bear with me a moment.

Picture Iran’s map. Of all the five major ethnic groups of Iran who are asking for basic rights, all have neighboring countries of their same ethnicity.

To the Southeast we have the abused Balouch of Iran who have their Balouch brothers and sisters in Pakistan.

To the Northeast there are the abused Turkmen of Iran, with the Republic of Turkmenistan to its North.

To the northwest the abused Azerbaijanis in Iran look to the Republic of Azerbaijan to the North and Republic of Turkey to the West.

In the West, the abused Kurds in Iran have their kin in the newly established nation of Kurdestan in Iraq.

To the Southwest and the South, the abused Arabs in Iran, have many independent and prosperous Arab countries to their South and West.

What allegiance can be expected from abused and neglected ethnic groups of Iran today?

These ethnic groups that have borders separating them from their brothers and sisters will be loyal and committed to Iran, only when there is a federal government that is democratic, and ethnically represented.

Islamic Republic’s tortures, imprisonments and executions can only temporarily delay the inevitable dissolution of the country.

In the name of the Nation of South Azerbaijan, I respectfully request the opportunity to address our viewpoint in other meetings with distinguished

God bless Freedom,
God bless America
and
God bless the great nation of South Azerbaijan