Mr. Brett deserves lots of credit for this informtaive article.
I am an Arab-Iranian from the al-Ahwaz region (Khuzestan) in southwest Iran.
In Iran, some 5 million Ahwazi-Arab are being treated like 2nd and 3rd class citizens and live in abject poverty while their ancestral land produces 4.5 million barrel of oil daily at the tune of $60 billion per year that all of goes to the mullahs coffer in Tehran (some of it funds terrorist in Iraq and elsewhere).
The Iranian government deliberately keeps the Arab-inhabited areas of Khuzestan economically depressed.
The al-Ahwaz province is totally militarized and no journalist is allowed to go to Ahwaz from Tehran (the press corp. is specifically prohibited to do so).
While all Iranians suffer under the Mullahs but Ahwazi-Arabs are barred from studying and speak their language, wear traditional dress, participate in the local government etc. Ahwazis cannot wear their national and ethnic dress and costume in official centers. They are a people ignored, they are non-official.
The policies of the Islamic Republic, like its predecessor, are based on the elimination of the national identity of Ahwazi-Arabs, and to a lesser degree, other nationalities such as the Turks, Kurds, Baluchis and Turkmen
Islamic Republic government continues the ethnic cleansing, forced assimilation, and forced resettlement policy of the previous government to expel indigenous Ahwazi-Arab population out of Khuzestan by providing economic incentives and enticements to re-settle non- Arab population on the expropriated Arab farmlands. This policy is intended to dilute or de-populate the towns and villages of Khuzestan from indigenous Arabs.
In most villages of Arab regions there are no schools.
Indigenous Ahwazi Arab students drop out of schools at 30% during elementary, 50% during secondary and 70% during high school because they are forced to study a so called official language, a language that is not their native.
The regime does not permit any genuine Arabic newspapers or any other types of media in Khuzestan (al-Ahwaz). Ahwazis are excluded from the scene in the press and mass media. Instead, we see a systematic campaign of hatred and misrepresentation of indigenous Ahwazi Arabs in Iranian media; again a common denominator of the previous and the current regime.
Iranian government authorities in Khuzestan refuse to register and issue birth identity cards to indigenous Arab newborn-babies who do not assume Persian or Shiite names.
Now, as in the previous regime, governor general of Khuzestan, all other province’s political, military and security commanders, officers, mayors and all high and mid-level government officials of Khuzestan, have consistently been appointed from non-Arabs outside of the native Arab population.
