Article 18 and 19: these two articles of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights are left out for the majority of people, as restrictions on Freedom of Religion and Freedom of Opinion and Information are hand in hand in Iran.
News on trampling on Freedom of Expression have lately become regular. On World Press Freedom Day, while we were chanting and tweeting slogans such as “#FreePress” and “Journalism is not a crime”, we hadn’t been able to digest the few-day-old news that Jason Rezaian, the Iranian-American journalist of the Washington Post had been charged with violating Iran’s national security. The judges evoked crimes such as “spreading propaganda against the system” and“collaborating with hostile governments”. We might also recall a few other examples of journalists and bloggers who fell victim to the authorities’ curbs on freedom of expression and the media, such as Soheil Arabi or Masood Seyed Talebi.
The message seems to be clear and simple as Susanna Flood, the Media Director at Amnesty International put it: ‘If you dare to report on human rights issues you should be ready to spend time in prison or even be killed’.
But Iran doesn’t only censor the critical lines and peculiarities taken by journalists and the media, also minority groups suffer from the practice: they constantly face denial of their right to express themselves and to practice their cultural rights. Besides Kurds and Afghan refugees, Arab minorities are also targeted. Many Iranian Arabs have alleged that the government systematically disfavours them, particularly in relation to employment, housing, access to political office, and restricts the exercise of their cultural, civil and political rights. They are not even allowed to use their mother language as a medium of instruction for primary education.
In recent years, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have documented several cases of arbitrary arrests and torture against Ahwazi Arab protesters and activists.
The latest round of arrests has taken place amid the anger that has swept the province following the death of Younes Asakereh, an Ahwazi Arab street vendor who set himself on fire to protest municipal authorities’ removal and destruction of his fruit stand. He was denied adequate emergency treatment and transport to Tehran and died of his injuries on 22 March. Ahwazi Arab demonstrators then took to the streets in large numbers in the provincial city of Khorramshahr.
The two human rights organisations have long urged the Iranian authorities to address established discrimination against Ahwazi Arabs and the deprivation of their cultural rights, instead of intensifying repression.
As a response to the saddening situation, President Rouhani has appointed a special adviser on ethnic and religious minorities, but this hasn’t yet resulted in a reduction in the pervasive discrimination against the country’s ethnic minority communities. But hopefully this is just a matter of time and good practice.
You can find the press release about this latest crackdown on the Ahwazi Arab community issued by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch here.