|
Friday, July 28, 2006
 The young son of Zamel Bawi, who has been sentenced to death after a show trial by the Iranian regime, has delivered a heart-wrenching appeal to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to intervene to save his father's life.
Zamel Bawi is among several Ahwazi Arabs who have endured months of torture in Iran following bomb attacks in Ahwaz last year. He and his brothers, who are sons of moderate Ahwazi tribal leader Hajj Salem Bawi, have all been charged with "waging war on God".
Zamel's son writes: "I have spent my nights wailing, crying and appealing to God who advised me to ask you for help. God of the universe told me that there still exist a few people on this earth who believe in justice, rightness, and truth. God also told me that some of his decent humankinds who will be able to help are people like you, those who organize to protect human rights and humanity, and those just loving people.
"Please help quickly with all means, I do not want to be disappointed about the United Nations and those human loving organization in the world.
"I love my father; I want to grow up with a father who cares for and loves me. I want him to hug me, console me and feel for me. Please do not let them tpunish me by depriving me of my father's kindness and love. Trust and believe me that my father does not deserve to be executed. He speaks for freedom and aspires for it like many did before him and sought justice for humankind.
 "Mr. Kofi Annan, since the death sentence was issued against my father, my mother has been hospitalized. During this period there is no one who takes care of me, there was no one I could speak to about my sadness. Until I saw you on the TV talking about freedom and justice, It came to my mind as my God told me to appeal to you, the human rights organization, and appeal to America, Canada, European countries and to all children of the world to stand with me and with all those children whose fathers might be executed at any time by the Iranian anti-human regime. I am appealing to you: please ask them to return my father to me and please to prevent them from the killing my father. I have nothing but him in this world and I need him back. Who could bring happiness and the love to me, but him? Please help me as soon as possible and as much as you can.
"People of the world, innocent children of the world, please include your voice with mine so that I can be heard loudly and say: do not kill my father. Please call with me for his release, my call alone is not enough since I called and cried many times alone, but I could not do any thing. Please help me so that I can stop the death sentence against my father and fathers of other Ahwazi children. Please, please, please."
Sunday, July 23, 2006
An Ahwazi-American family experience of the horror in Beirut:
Hamidi, 24, arrived in Lebanon the night of July 12 for a family vacation and woke up the next morning to the sounds of the airport being bombed
Her shell-shocking
ordeal in Lebanon
|
|
|
BY DORIAN BLOCK
DAILY NEWS WRITER |
|
| Yasmine Hamidi is still rattled after being trapped in Lebanon bombing. |
| Yasmine Hamidi has been out of Lebanon for two days, but the bomb-rattled Washington Heights woman started to cry when she heard the sound of thunder yesterday.
"It's definitely hitting a nerve," Hamidi said, exhausted after riding a bus yesterday into the Port Authority on the last leg of her long trip home. "We had seven days to get used to it, but then you never get used to it."
Hamidi, 24, arrived in Lebanon the night of July 12 for a family vacation and woke up the next morning to the sounds of the airport being bombed.
Soon the bombs were hitting her neighborhood in the battered suburbs of south Beirut.
"First we heard the planes. We learned that they would sort of circle around before the bombs. And you would just wait and wait until it finally dropped," she said.
"The kids were conditioned to run when they heard the planes. They were petrified of the sound, run to the nearest adult and asked to be picked up. Sometimes they buried their face in the floor and covered their heads," Hamidi said.
Hamidi and her aunt, uncle and cousins from Brooklyn were trapped in a two-bedroom apartment with Lebanese relatives.
During the day more than a dozen family members huddled around the television, which showed live coverage of men, women and children dying outside. At night, when the bombings lasted for several hours, they crowded into the hallway and attempted to sleep.
For the first five days, Hamidi grew accustomed to the pattern of F-16s buzzing overhead and then the earth-shaking bombs that followed. But on her final days in the country, she became increasingly desperate for an American evacuation as bombs began landing closer to her apartment.
"A bomb hit a truck outside the apartment. ... The bomb hit so close that the elevator door flew open," Hamidi said. "That night we thought we weren't meant to leave Beirut."
Finally, on Wednesday, the barrage on her neighborhood was so intense that the family she was staying with had to evacuate their home, and Hamidi and her Brooklyn relatives were able to get on a government-chartered helicopter to Cypress.
The next day she took a chartered flight to Ireland and then Baltimore. She arrived back in New York yesterday aboard a Greyhound bus.
Hamidi praised the attentive officials involved in the evacuation effort, but criticized the U.S. government for condoning Israel's actions and for waiting so long to get citizens out.
"To let your citizens sit in the crossfire for seven days is too long when you are the most powerful and richest country in the world," she said.
Originally published on July 22, 2006 |
Friday, July 21, 2006
Over 4.5 million indigenous Ahwazi Arab people live in the territory known as al-Ahwaz or Khuzestan in present-day Islamic Republic of Iran.
Prior to its annexation by Iran in 1925, al-Ahwaz used to be an autonomous, and at times, independent territory, inhabited entirely by indigenous Ahwazi Arab tribes.
For the past 500 years, the region was called Arabistan by Persian rulers (signifying the territory’s Arab character). The central government changed the territory’s name to Khuzestan in 1936. Currently, Al-Ahwaz or Khuzestan is an area of 69,000 sq kilometres, which lies between South western Iran, bordering also Iraq, Kuwait and the Arabian Gulf.
The Ahwazis believe that the exercise of their right of self-determination would provide them with a suitable means of conflict resolution for the ongoing conflict with the Iranian government.
The overwhelming majority of Ahwazis believe in non-violence and in the use of civic means to establish a civil society based on the rule of law and to foster democratic principles and values. However, frustration of the poor and desperate Ahwaz youth is being viewed as the cause of the current violence in Khuzestan, including the destruction of oil installations. Iran, on the other hand, refuses to release thousands of Ahwazi political prisoners, many of whom have been incarcerated for more than 20 years.
The Ahwazis have been subjected to the eradication of their national identity, culture, language, and customs; and are faced with forced assimilation and imposition of Persian language and culture.
Indigenous Ahwazis have been brutalized and deliberately kept backward by the successive regimes of Iran. While their land accounts for over 80% of Iranian oil production, they benefit no revenue in return with half of Ahwazi people in absolute poverty and 80% of Ahwazi children suffering from malnutrition.
A dominant Persian minority influences in every respect of life, political, social, cultural and economical of the Ahwazis. As such the legitimate demands of self determination of the Ahwazi people are often labelled as “separatist”, “secessionist” or called “stooges of foreign countries” or “danger to security and territorial integrity”.
The people of al-Ahwaz believe that the future of Iran as a modern and a progressive state, and a responsible member of the International community, could be guaranteed only through a voluntary association of all national groups constituting Iran.
Thursday, July 20, 2006
UN Special Rapporteur on housing, Miloon Kothari, has released a damning report on Iran's housing conditions, singling out ethnic and religious minorities and women as suffering discrimination.
Kothari visited Iran in July 2005 to assess living conditions and made a special visit to Ahwaz (Khuzestan), where he saw for himself the level of discrimination against Arabs, including land confiscations.
In his report submitted to the UN Economic and Social Council, he states that: "In Kermanshah and Khuzestan, the overall living conditions in poor neighbourhoods mainly inhabited by Kurds, Arabs and Muslim Sufis were extremely unsatisfactory. Particularly serious conditions were observed in places like Ghal'e Channan and Akhar Asfalt in Ahvaz with, in some cases, a complete lack of basic services impacting negatively on the populations' health status, in addition to contributing to severe security problems. Most poor neighbourhoods were unpaved, open-air sewage was sometimes observed and uncollected garbage blocked streets, obstructing traffic and access from the outside in case of emergencies."
The Special Rapporteur "visited lands traditionally cultivated by Iranian Arabs, which were expropriated by the Government for remarkably low prices in order to provide space for development projects and plantations, such as the Dekhoda sugar-cane project. The affected population had no access to legal remedies to challenge the legitimacy and legality of the expropriation orders and existing legal remedies only enabled the inhabitants to initiate discussions related to the price offered for their lands. Allegedly, even in the very few cases in which the prices were slightly raised by courts, they were still fixed much lower than market values. The affected population was not consulted before or during the expropriation procedure.
"Expropriations for the implementation of development projects have been especially criticized in view of the considerable amount of unutilized rural land, where displacement would be minimal, and which was already owned by the Government, where such projects could be located."
Kothari's initial observations led to a cross-party motion of condemnation of land confiscation in Ahwaz by the European Parliament, with some politicians such as Paulo Casaca MEP stating that the Iranian government was carrying out a policy of systematic ethnic cleansing against Ahwazi Arabs.
Friday, July 14, 2006
|
Saturday, July 08, 2006
Tuesday, July 4, 2006 -- Two women in the Iranian city of Ahawaz, two women in the city of Shiraz, and one woman in Tehran’s Evin prison are awaiting the execution of their sentences of public stoning.
According to reports received by the International Committee Against Stoning yesterday, repeated sentences of stoning in Iran have been issued and the Islamic Republic is intent on carrying out these illegal sentences. There are reports of two sentences of public stoning in Ahawaz jail, two in Shiraz, and one in Evin prison. These reports are in addition to Malak Ghorbany’s sentence of public stoning in Northeast Iran.
In the past two weeks, the Islamic Republic of Iran has executed at least one person by public stoning in a jail in Mashhad. The news of the stoning is carefully guarded from being revealed to anyone outside of the prison.
The International Committee Against Stoning firmly denounces this barbaric practice and declares that it will ensure that this issue becomes internationally recognized, and will, once again, call upon the world community to hold the Islamic Republic accountable for these atrocities. Meanwhile, the Committee will continue its efforts to ensure that the ruling members of the Islamic Republic are charged for their continued violations of human rights and are tried in an international court for their crimes against humanity.
The practice of stoning is an act of savagery. Two years ago, firm international denouncement of this barbarous practice, which included demands to punish various members of the ruling regime for their crimes against humanity, led Iran to outlaw stoning as a form of capital punishment for women. Yet, Irancontinues to carry out stoning sentences in secret.
We announce that we will not allow the savage execution of these six women, including Malak Ghorbany, who have been sentenced to stoning. We have initiated a massive international campaign to ensure the rescue of these women from execution, as well as to hold the ruling regime of Iran responsible for violations of human rights and for committing crimes against humanity. We are inviting all persons to join us in our effort to put an end to such atrocity.
Support the International Committee Against Stoning to save the lives of these women. Please express your outrage about such violations of human rights in any way that you deem appropriate and productive.
|
Friday, July 14, 2006
|
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Once again,another Iranian woman has been sentenced to death by the barbaric practice of public stoning. On June 28, 2006, a court in the northwestern Iranian city of Urmia sentenced Malak Ghorbany to death for committing "adultery." Under Iran's Penal Code, the term "adultery" is used to describe any intimate or sexual act between a man and a girl/woman who are not married.
On the day of her punishment, the woman's hands are tied behind her back as she becomes covered from head to toe in winding sheets and is placed seated in a pit. The pit is then filled up to her chest with dirt and the dirt is tamped down. At that point, members of the community are invited to murder her by hurling rocks at her. However, to ensure that the condemned woman/girl receives the absolute maximum amount of pain and torture, the Iranian government has even mandated the size of the stones that are to be used in this barbaric act of public execution. By law, the stones must not be too small as to prevent ultimate death, nor must they be too large that they could cause the girl's death "too soon."
The Committee for the Defense of Human Rights of Iranian Kurdistan has issued a statement to save the life of Malak Ghorbany, and I have initiated a petition, directed to members of the United Nations, Amnesty International, the ruling clerics in Iran, and various other organizations and entities around the world to oppose Malak's barbaric sentence. I need you to help me save Malak's life, as we did with the 17 year old Nazanin, by signing this petition and raising as much awareness as possible to her case. Without significant international pressure and expressions of outrage at the atrocities committed by the Isalmic regime, Iranians will continue to be subjected to medieval practices that violate the most basic rights of humans.
I thank you for your support, friendship, and kindness, and I look forward to a day when no woman is abused, tortured, or murdered simply because of her gender.
by Lily Mazahery
|
Saturday, July 08, 2006
 The abuse of Ahwazi Arabs' human rights has been raised at the United Nations Human Rights Council amid mounting concerns over Iran's treatment of political prisoners, including minors and babies, who belong to the persecuted Ahwazi Arab ethnic group.
In a written statement, the Transnational Radical Party, which has general consultative status with the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), followed up on a report by the UN Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing Miloon Kothari published in August last year. He accused the Iranian regime of serious discrimination and the forced displacement of Arabs for the construction of industrial projects and ethnically exclusive settlements in Khuzestan (click here for TRP statement). TRP followed up the statement outlining the regime's "ten year project of ethnic restructuring and confiscation of Arab land" and its "forced resettlement policy to displace the Ahwazis out of Khuzestan to settle 'loyal' ethnic Persians on the expropriated Arab farmlands. Ahwazis are being perceived as disloyal, suspicious and a security risk, who some day may reclaim the oil rich land of Khuzestan." (click here to download the statement)
TRP adds that in the past 15 years, "over 250,000 hectares of Ahwazi farmers land in regions of Jufir, Shosh, Hoizeh, Hamidieh have been forcefully confiscated and given to Persian settlers in violation of the article 4.5 of the United Nations Declaration on Minorities."
Referring to a letter written by Vice-President Ali Abtahi in 1999 which was leaked to the international media last year (click here to download the Abtahi letter), TRP states that it is the regime's intention to reduce the Ahwazi Arab population from a 70% majority to a 1/3 minority by the end of the decade. More than one million non-indigenous Persians have been moved into settlements such as Ramin-2 and Shirin-Shahr.
TRP adds that "ethnic Ahwazi children are being deprived from the use and study of their mother language and people are being denied participation in public life and in decisions affecting them. The illiteracy rate is 4 to 5 times higher than non-Arabs and unemployment is 4 times the national average."
Another international NGO with ECOSOC consultative status, the International Federation for the Protection of the Rights of Ethnic, Religious, Linguistic & Other Minorities (IFPRERLOM), also highlighted Mr Kothari's findings in a written statement submitted to the UNHRC (click here to download statement). It urged the Council "to follow up on the recommendation made by the UN Special Rapporteur on HousingRights; and to provide adequate compensation, support and consultancy with indigenous populations affected by development projects, whilst promoting and protecting the rights of minorities in Iran." In a separate statement (click here to download), IFPRERLOM drew attention to further human rights abuses, including the imprisonment of children and pregnant women, summary executions carried out after the April 2005 uprising, the use of torture against Ahwazis held in detention and a number of death sentences carried out by the regime. It urged the UNHCR:
- to urgently alert UN Secretary General, HE Kofi Annan, to the current situation in Iran regarding the human rights situation in Khuzestan;
- to ensure the immediate and unconditional release of the remaining Ahwazi women and children being held in prison;
- to call, as a matter of urgency, for a follow-up to the initial request by UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, to the government of Iran toarrange a visit; and
- to put renewed pressure on Iran to end practices of unlawful arbitrary detention, execution and acts of repression against the indigenous Ahwazi Arabs, Balochis and other minority groups in Iran, especially with regard to minors.
|
