Tehran’s bloody record of arrests, torture and executions.
London. 15 April 2006
On 15 April 2005, the Ahwazi Arab people of south western Iran staged mass protests against ethnic repression by the Tehran regime.
The Iranian security forces responded with savage brutality, killing over 160 civilians and arresting at least 450 people, including the wives and children of Ahwazi opposition activists. Several Ahwazi dissidents have been executed after show trials.
Since then, many hundreds, possibly thousands, of Ahwazis have been arrested and detained without trial. Some have been tortured.
On the first anniversary of the Ahwazi Arab intifada, Peter Tatchell condemned the Iranian regime’s “murderous” ethnic cleansing programme and defended the “just cause” of the Ahwazi Arab people:
“As a gay and human rights campaigner, and as a member of the Green Party of England and Wales, I express my solidarity with the freedom struggle of the Ahwazi Arab people.
“Human rights are universal and indivisible, Wherever there is injustice and oppression, people have a right to rebel. It is the duty of all people everywhere to stand together, united in solidarity against all oppression.
“Iran is a racist state, with a covert agenda for the ethnic cleansing of the Ahwazi Arab nation. This is a crime against humanity under international law.
“The massacres, arrests, jailings, tortures and executions of Ahwazi Arabs are a blot on the conscience of the world.
“Despite living in the region of Iran richest in oil, the Ahwazi Arab people are victims of a cruel, deliberate impoverishment by the Iranian regime.
“This monstrous injustice must end. The tyrannical clerical dictatorship in Tehran must go, and be replaced by a democratic, secular state that ensures human rights and self-government for the Ahwazi Arab people, and freedom for all the ethnic, sexual, religious and cultural minorities of Iran.