Note that the supposed Iranian nationalist “opponent” of the regime is quick to distract attention from Tehran’s racist treatment of minorities such as the Ahwazi Arabs. Not even a word of sympathy for those who are being driven from their villages due to thirst and disease imposed on them by the regime in Tehran. The only thing he can do is make baseless accusations and divert debate away from the suffering of persecuted indigenous Ahwazi Arabs.
Nationalist “opposition” groups in the US comprise self-serving political has-beens and no-hopers who worship dead men such as Mossadegh and Pahlavi. Many speak better English than they do Farsi. They have little or no relevance in today’s youthful Iran, where most people were born after the revolution. Their importance is only determined by their wealth, not by their following inside Iran. There are no Ahwazi Arabs following their agenda, so they want to sideline the Ahwazi cause.
Western governments are waking up to this fact. In February, the European Parliament voted overwhelmingly to protest “vehemently against the execution in Iran on 30 January 2008 at 4 am local time of the Ahwazi activist Zamel Bawi, the 19th Ahwazi activist executed in the last twelve months, and urges the Iranian government to desist from executing the Dutch citizen and human-rights activist Faleh Abdulah al-Mansouri and the UNHCR-registered refugees Rasoul Ali Mazrea and Said Saki, whose resettlement to Norway has been secured, as well as to allow them to proceed to their countries of citizenship or refuge.” http://www.ahwaz.org.uk/2008/02/irans-executions-condemned-by-european.html
The US State Department’s human rights report on Iran stated “the Iranian regime discriminates “on the basis of religion, gender, and ethnicity. It consistently denied minorities their constitutional right to study and use their language in schools, particularly Kurds, Azeris, and Ahwazi Arabs. The poorest areas of the country were those inhabited by ethnic minorities, including the Baluchis in Sistan va Baluchestan Province and Arabs in the southwest. Much of the damage suffered by the citizens of Khuzestan Province during the eight-year war with Iraq has not been repaired; consequently, the quality of life of the largely Arab local population was poor.” (http://www.ahwaz.org.uk/2008/03/us-state-department-iran-persecutes.html)
Yet, the supposed nationalist opponent of the regime claims there are no Ahwazi Arabs, that they don’t exist! Whether he knows it or not, he is serving the regime’s racist agenda.
