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Ahwazi Arabs delivered a crushing blow to Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad received in the elections for the Assembly of Experts and municipal authorities as well as by-elections for the Majlis.

Writing in the Elaph newspaper, the Tehran-based Ahwazi journalist Youssef Azizi Bani Torouf wrote that 60 per cent of eligible voters boycotted the elections in the Arab majority province of Khuzestan, where over 170 Arab candidates were barred from standing. Despite this, anti-Ahmadinejad independent "reformists" achieved a complete landslide.

The popular rejection of Ahmadinejad comes after months of mass arrests and executions of Ahwazi political activists and the outlawing of the Lejnat Al-Wefaq (Reconciliation Committee), an Arab group that had won all but one seat on the Ahwaz City Council in 2003. This year's elections saw Ahmadinejad supporters win just two seats on the council, despite violent intimidation; over 25,000 political activists have been arrested and hundreds have been killed or 'disappeared' since the April 2005 Ahwazi Arab intifada (uprising) against the regime.

Nasser Bani Assad, spokesman for the British Ahwazi Friendship Society, said: "The largest vote was the boycott vote, with an absolute majority of Ahwazis rejecting the entire political system. Those elected to office have no mandate to govern when the majority of voters boycotted the elections. Unless Ahwazi Arabs are allowed to form their own parties to contest free and fair elections, they have the right to reject the political system and sabotage the instruments of their oppression.

"Ahmadinejad is so unpopular in Ahwaz that his supporters cannot achieve any respectable vote despite state violence and ballot stuffing. Ahwazi voters completely rejected him in last year's presidential election and anti-Ahmadinejad sentiment has hardened since he came to office. Ahmadinejad has not even dared to step into the city because he is not welcome."

Labels: elections

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15 December, 2006

Ahwaz elections: Iran's intimidation, repression and racism

Ahwazi Arabs have staged a mass boycott of the elections to the Ahwaz municipal council and the Assembly of Experts amid accusations of electoral fraud, intimidation and political repression.

Writing in the Arabic media, leading Ahwazi journalist Youssef Azizi Bani Torouf has highlighted the regime's ban on Arab candidates, with members of the Ahwaz council prevented from seeking re-election.

In the 2003 elections to the council, all but one of the winning candidates were supported by the Lejnat Al-Wefaq (Reconciliation Committee) which advocated Arab minority rights on the basis of the equal rights enshrined in the Iranian Constitution. The elections were widely praised for being free, fair and transparent. Since then, the party has been outlawed and Wefaq members have been imprisoned, with leading members such as Ali Matouri Zadeh now facing execution.

In this year's elections, the regime has blocked over 170 Ahwazi Arabs from running for election to the Ahwaz municipal council following a racist vetting procedure conducted by the regime. While Ahwaz City is 70 per cent Arab, the vast majority of candidates allowed to stand for election are non-Arabs, including hardliners from the Revolutionary Guards which has conducted ethnic cleansing programmes in the province.

In the run-up to the polls, the regime conducted mass arrests of Ahwazi Arabs and fired on crowds of demonstrators with live ammunition ( click here for further details ). The Ahwaz Human Rights Organisation reports that three Ahwazis arrested by the security services during recent demonstrations - Hassan Mola Niassi (31), Jassim Nadhan Niassi (30) and Nasseri Ramadan (26) - are being tortured in custody.

Nasser Bani Assad, spokesman for the British Ahwazi Friendship Society, said: "These elections have been marred by state violence, intimidation and electoral fraud. The bar on Arab council members from seeking re-election in order to elect hardline non-Arab outsiders is yet more proof of violent institutional anti-Arab racism in Iran.

"The elections violate the spirit of Iran's constitution, particularly Articles 15, 19 and 20 which guarantee equal rights for ethnic minorities. If the government is violating the constitution, then the government has no mandate to govern and no authority over the Ahwazi Arabs.

"Ahwazis have the right to disrupt peacefully all the activities of illegitimate municipal authorities and sabotage the instruments of their oppression. We urge Ahwazi Arabs to adopt civil disobedience tactics to overthrow the new Ahwaz City Council, whoever is declared the winner."

Labels: activism , elections , intifada

15 October, 2006

Regime moves to prevent Arab representation on Assembly of Experts

The Governor of Khuzestan (Ahwaz) has appointed only non-Arabs to the committee overseeing the elections of the Arab-majority province's representatives on Iran's Assembly of Experts (Khobregan).

Twelve people were appointed to the committee by the controversial hardline Governor, Amir Hayat Moqaddam, who is an ally of President Mahmoud and a former Revolutionary Guards commander. The appointments included representatives of the Ministry of Islamic Culture and Guidance and the intelligence and security agencies as well as the provincial attorney general and the head of the electoral registration office.

The Assembly of Experts is a congressional body of 86 Ayatollahs which selects the Supreme Leader (Valiye-Faqih) and supervises his activities. It is elected every eight years with the next election due in December. Khuzestan province, called Al-Ahwaz by its Arab population, elects six representatives to the Assembly of Experts.

Khuzestan's representatives on the Assembly of Experts have been involved in missionary activities in the UK through the Islamic Centre of England , which promotes Iran's brand of religious extremism among Muslims in the West. The current ICE director is Abdolhossein Moezi, a Khuzestan representative on the Assembly of Experts, who is also a trustee of the controversial Irshad Trust ( click here for more information ). He took over from Mohsen Araki, another Khuzestan representative on the Assembly of Experts, as Khamenei's personal representative in London. The religious extremism of Khuzestan's members on the Assembly of Experts is not representative of the Ahwazi Arab culture, which does not share the regime's hostility to the West.

The regime is keen to prevent Ahwazi Arabs from standing for election to the Assembly of Experts due to the growth of. In February 2003, the Wefagh party, an Arab ultra-reformist group, won all but one of the seats on the Ahwaz City Council in elections that were relatively fair. The Wefagh (Harmony) party has since been banned, its secretary general was barred from seeking re-election to parliament in 2004 and a number of party activists were imprisoned. The crushing of Wefagh ended Ahwazi Arab hopes of securing their rights through constitutional means, leading to an upsurge in anti-regime activism in Ahwaz.

The appointments to the election committee, which vets candidates and controls election procedures, appear to be an attempt by the regime to ensure that the outcome of the election to the Assembly of Experts is favourable to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his ally President Ahmadinejad. The composition of the election committee also highlights the discrimination against Ahwazi Arabs, preventing them from seeking public office.

Campaign news

The only Arab member of the Assembly of Experts, Abbas Kaabi, is seeking re-election by campaigning to reduce sentences for Ahwazi political prisoners and greater press freedom. However, over the past year, he has been unable or unwilling to use his position to stop the imprisonment of Ahwazi children, land confiscations and the closure of local newspapers by the regime.

Labels: elections

19 June, 2005

Election results for Khuzestan

The election turn-out was very low in the Arab majority province of Khuzestan, with reports of deserted polling stations and negligible voting in some Arab districts.

The regime has given various turn-out figures, some as high as 80%. Officially, turn-out was 56% - a figure rejected by Ahwazi parties. The turn-out was probably less than 25% in Khuzestan, due to the boycott, the authorities' refusal to allow people to vote and general apathy.

Reformist presidential candidates have attacked the elections for widespread fraud and intimidation, with the regime accused of directing terrorist attacks to boost the vote of hard-liners.

Despite widespread electoral fraud, intimidation and a low-turn out in Khuzestan, reformist Mehdi Karrubi - a former Majlis speaker - topped the poll with more than a third of votes cast. He was followed by former president Hashemi Rafsanjani, who won around a fifth of votes. Hardline Tehran Mayor Mahmud Ahmadinezhad, who gained the backing of the religious elite, came third with just one in six of the votes.

It is unclear whether these results reflect the voting intentions of those who voted due to irregularities. But the flawed official results show that the candidate that topped the poll in Khuzestan, Mehdi Karrubi, will not be included in the second round run-off elections between Rafsanjani and Ahmadinezhad. Karrubi won roughly the same amount of votes as Rafsanjani and Ahmadinezhad combined.

With up to 80 per cent of the population of Khuzestan failing to vote in the first round, the elections revealed that most people in the Arab majority province have rejected Iran's political system.

Official results for Khuzestan

Mehdi Karrubi: 539,158 (34.5%)
Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani: 319,883 (20.5%)
Mahmud Ahmadinezhad: 224,427 (14.4%)
Mustafa Moin: 148,375 (9.5%)
Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf: 148,207 (9.5%)
Ali Larijani: 58,554 (3.7%)
Mohsen Mehralizadeh: 20,253 (1.3%)

Total vote cast = 1,563,000 or 56% of eligible voters

Labels: elections

Unrest on Polling Day

Ahwaz witnessed civil unrest on Friday, during Iran's presidential election. A polling station in Ahwaz City was hit by an artillery rocket and three cars were set alight. In Ramshir (Khalaf-Abad), 90km south-west of Ahwaz, a polling station was also hit a rocket. No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks.

Labels: elections

18 June, 2005

Election boycott in Khuzestan

Reports from Iran suggest that an overwhelming majority of Ahwazi Arabs boycotted the presidential elections in protest against the regime.

In recent weeks, Al-Ahwaz TV has been broadcasting to the Arab-majority province of Khuzestan calling for non-violent resistance and a boycott. Ahwazis responded positively to the call. Polling stations were reportedly empty throughout Friday in the province's Arab-populated districts, two months after the regime ordered a bloody crack-down on Ahwazi demonstrators which resulted in the deaths of over 160 unarmed civilians.

The regime claimed the turn-out in Khuzestan was over 80 per cent, well above the supposed national average of 65 per cent. Ahwazi groups called the claims "laughable" and "desperate propaganda".

Reformist presidential candidate Mehdi Karoubi, who came third in the polls, said: "There has been bizarre interference. Money has changed hands. They can go and file a lawsuit against me, but I will give all the names of the people in power in my defence. I see this election as being rigged."

Another reformist candidate, Mustafa Moin, complained of "irregularities". In a statement, he said: "Take seriously the danger of fascism. Such creeping and complex attempts will eventually lead to militarism, authoritarianism as well as social and political suffocation in the country. This is a threat for civil society and is blocking reform."

Nasser Ban-Assad, spokesman for the British Ahwazi Friendship Society (BAFS), said: "This election result was achieved through deceit, violence and fraud. Civil servants who said they were boycotting the poll were arrested and told to vote in three different polling stations or they would lose their jobs and be incarcerated. This is not a free and fair election by any standards.

"Ahwazi Arabs refuse to participate in a system that oppresses them, that rounds up hundreds of civilians, tortures them and kills them simply because of their ethnic origin and because their homeland is the most oil-rich place on the planet. Only mad men and fanatics believe that Arabs would willingly turn out to vote after two months of state violence.

"Whoever wins the second round of the elections, it makes no difference to the Ahwazis. The Ahwazis will still be living under a Supreme Leader, a tyrannical theocrat with no democratic legitimacy."

Labels: elections

15 June, 2005

Iran bomb attacks are an inside job

There is mounting speculation that a string of bomb attacks across Iran was conducted by the security services seeking to terrorise the population into voting for militarist hard-liner Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf in the presidential election.

At an election rally, former Education Minister Mostafa Moin, the candidate for the Islamic Iran Participation Front and one of the front-runners in the election, dismissed the notion that the Mujahideen or any other opposition group was involved in the attacks, which have killed at least 10 civilians.

In an interview with the UK's Guardian newspaper, Moin did not say who was directly responsible for the attacks in Ahvaz City, Tehran and other cities in the past few days. But when asked whether the attacks had official approval, Moin, whose party is in power in Khuzestan, said: "I do not consider it improbable. If they continue in this way, my supporters will hold an emergency meeting to study the situation and they will reconsider our participation in the election."

Moin's supporters have come under violent attack by supporters of Qalibaf and Rafsanjani, the other candidates tipped for the presidency. Election violence has mounted as Qalibaf's support has ebbed, despite backing for his bid for power by the mullahs.

The British Ahwazi Friendship Society (BAFS), which lobbies on behalf of moderate Ahwazi organisations, human rights groups and the UK's 3,000-strong Ahwazi community, has dismissed reports that the bomb attacks were the work of fringe separatist groups. Ahwazi groups claiming responsibility are more likely to be seeking media attention, but do not have the military capability or organisation to conduct large bomb attacks within Iran.

BAFS has suggested that the attacks could be the work of secret police chief Hojjatol Islam Ali Younessi and his deputy Mohammad Reza Iravani, although the evidence is circumstantial. As Director of the General Directorate of Special Operations, Iravani was responsible for an attack on Imam Reza shrine which killed a number of pilgrims in June 1994, during Rafsanjani's administration. At the time, the attack was blamed on opposition groups. Iranian defectors later revealed that the attacks were a stage-managed by the DGSO in an attempt to force foreign governments into halting the activities of exiled opposition groups. The DGSO was reponsible for the murders of Christian priests, which were also initially blamed on foreign opposition groups but later revealed to be masterminded by Iravani.

BAFS spokesman Nasser Ban-Assad: "Khuzestan is being used by the military to stage these bomb attacks. Violence provides the most extreme elements within the regime an excuse to step up their campaign of persecution of Ahwazi Arabs, helps marginalise Ahwazi groups from the West and wins over support for their militarist agenda.

"Under President Khatami, the 'Reformists' failed to tackle these extremists and terrorists within the security infrastructure. Moin's party has achieved nothing for the Ahwazis in Khuzestan, despite having control over the provincial administration. The Ahwazis can only expect poverty and oppression from the regime, regardless of the puppet elected to the presidency.

"The regime has made the issue of voter turn-out into a referendum on the political system. We urge Ahwazis and other Iranians to abstain to deliver a vote of no confidence against the regime. Abstention will have a greater impact on the future of Iran than any bomb attack."

Labels: elections

13 June, 2005

Ahwaz group claims responsibility for Iran attacks

The Party of the Ahwazi Arab Movement has claimed that it was responsible for the bomb attacks in Ahwaz City on 12 June.

However, the British Ahwazi Friendship Society (BAFS) has cast doubt on the group's claims and suggested that the bomb attacks are likely to have been carried out with support from security forces: either a faction of the Iranian military seeking to influence the elections or a unit set up by a foreign government.

Nasser Ban-Assad, BAFS spokesman, said: "Some fringe exile Ahwazi groups are keen to gain notoriety and publicity by claiming responsibility for bomb attacks and pipeline sabotage in Khuzestan. Few Ahwazis believe that such small groups can co-ordinate attacks half-way across the world. These bomb attacks in Ahvaz City - which have been followed by similar explosions in Tehran and Karaj - have nothing to do with the Ahwazis and are part of a wider national and geopolitical dispute between far greater powers.

"It is clear that any group would need expertise and an operational infrastructure to co-ordinate four large explosions within a time-frame of just two hours in one of Iran's most militarised cities. No Ahwazi group has this military capacity or support. Those groups that were once backed by Iraq and Syria were never particularly effective even when they were given arms and explosives, let alone now when they have no foreign support.

"It is highly unlikely the US or the UK would give military support to any Ahwazi group, as suggested by the Iranian government. If they wanted regime change in Tehran, it is unlikely they would turn to Ahwazi Arab groups to achieve their aims."

This is not the first time that fringe Ahwazi groups have claimed responsibility for attacks within Iran. In May, the Elaph website published a claim by Canadian resident Sabah Musawi that an attack on Pipeline 102 (Masjed-e-Soleiman to Ahwaz) was carried out by his grouping, the Canada-based Ahwaz Renaissance Movement. The site also attributes the attack on the Abadan/Abadan-Ma'shuur/Mahshur pipeline to the ARM, which was created in Damascas under the auspices of the Syrian Ba'ath party before moving the Canada some years ago. Few believe the ARM is capable of pipeline sabotage within Khuzestan.

Ban-Assad added: "The danger is that these bomb attacks have given a green light to the Iranian government to detain, torture and murder more Ahwazi Arab civilians. The Revolutionary Guards have already gunned down 160 Arabs in cold blood since the April uprising and many more have "disappeared". We have received reports that Ahwazi Arab political prisoners are being interrogated in the torture chambers of Karoon Prison, while the security forces are sweeping Arab neighbourhoods in Khuzestan arresting people arbitrarily. We fear that the cycle of violence is escalating, leaving little room for negotiation. Arabs are facing increased state violence following the attacks.

"If you want to know who is behind the attacks, you only have to think about who would benefit the most - and it is not the Arabs. Certainly, the more extreme hard-line elements of the Iranian establishment will benefit greatly from the nationalist and religious fervour and anti-Arab sentiments that will arise as a result of these bomb attacks.

"If this was the work of the People's Mujahideen of Iran (PMOI) - or MEK/MKO - they will need to have sneaked out of US custody in Camp Ashraf in Iraq and into Iran while heavily armed, unless they had some help from their captors. This would raise some profound questions about the PMOI's designation as a terrorist group in the US and Europe. I believe that if the US and UK were to use the MKO to launch strikes within Iran, they would wait at least until after the elections and at a time when diplomatic negotiations over Iran's nuclear activities have been exhausted. But we can only speculate at this moment in time."

Labels: elections

12 June, 2005

Bomb blasts in Ahwaz City, Iran

Ahwaz City witnessed multiple bomb attacks this morning, just two months after the Iranian government launched a bloody crack-down on Ahwazi Arab protestors in Iran's Khuzestan province.

At least eight people were killed and dozens injured after massive bombs exploded in carefully targetted areas of Ahvaz City, Khuzestan's provincial capital: opposite the governor general's office, in front of the province's housing and urban development department and outside the house of the provincial chief of the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB).

The attacks were co-ordinated to go off at around 6.00am GMT. No group has claimed responsibility. Ali Aqamohammadi, the official spokesman for Iran's Spreme Council on National Security and Khuzestan's Governor, blamed the attacks on the separatist Ahwazi Arab Peoples Democratic Popular Front (ADPF). The ADPF, which claimed it was involved in the April demonstrations, denies any involvement. Its London-based spokesman Mahmoud Ahmad told Al-Jazeera TV: "We have no idea who has done this." The group is not known to be heavily armed and has not previously used explosives.

The armed opposition group Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK), also known as the MKO and the People's Mujahideen of Iran (PMOI), has also denied responsibility for the attacks, which were followed by a bomb blast in Tehran. Most of the MEK's combatants are being held in US custody at Camp Ashraf, the group's former headquarters in Iraq. The government's Iranian Labour News Agency (ILNA) has put the blame on the Brigades of Revolutionary Martyrs of Al-Ahwaz, an unknown "terrorist" group. There are suspicions that the bombs were planted by hard-liners within the regime itself to stir up religious extremism within the population and influence the results of the election.

The April riots were sparked by the publication of a letter written by the then Vice-President Ali Abtahi which outlined plans to reduce the number of Arabs in Khuzestan from three-quarters to around a third of the total population, while eliminating Arab cultural heritage and placenames in the province. The letter can be downloaded here.

Before the bomb attacks, local Ahwazi Arab leaders urged the government to give Khuzestan's largest ethnic group a fair share of the province's oil wealth and the right to political representation. In May, Jasem Shadidzadeh Al-Tamimi, a former member of parliament and the Secretary General of the Islamic Wefagh Party, a legal group representing Iranian Arabs, wrote an open letter to President Khatami. He asked him to "do your utmost in lowering the 'wall of mistrust' between the proud Iranian ethnicities, so that the 'infected wounds' of the Arab people of Ahwaz may heal." He stated that the government was denying Ahwazi Arabs peaceful, democratic means for protest.

Nasser Ban-Assad, spokesman for the British Ahwazi Friendship Society (BAFS), said: "I would not be surprised if an element of the Ahwazi Arab population decided to use violent means, but the attacks are not going to help the situation in Khuzestan. We fear that today's wave of attacks will invite retaliation on the Arab population of Khuzestan by the regime. Government forces have already killed 160 Arab civilians over the past two months and hundreds more are being detained, including intellectuals and tribal leaders. There is evidence of torture and the arbitrary use of state violence on innocent civilians.

"We are calling on Ahwazi Arabs to take up non-violent direct action against the regime and to boycott the forthcoming presidential elections. The call for civil disobedience is being broadcasted by the Al-Ahwaz TV station on the Assyrian satellite channel. We are also calling on Western governments, politicians and non-governmental organisations to highlight the plight of the Ahwazis and call for an end to their persecution and poverty."

Documents on Ahwazi Arabs in Khuzestan
Human Rights and the Ahwazi People
Ahwazis and the Legacy of War
Development and the Legacy of the Iran-Iraq War
The Economic Marginalisation of Ahwazis
Forced Migration and Land Confiscation in Khuzestan
Human Rights Watch Report on Khuzestan
Amnesty International Report on Khuzestan

Labels: elections

24 May, 2005

Former Iranian MP in Ahwazi appeal

Jasem Shadidzadeh Al-Tamimi, a former member of Iran's Majlis and the Secretary General of the Islamic Wefagh Party, has appealed to President Khatami to address the problem of displacement, homelessness and deprivation among Ahwazi Arab people.

In an open letter to the President, he brought attention to the fact that "lands are 'purchased' at a dirt cheap price from the Arab farmers and sometimes taken without any compensation." He condemned the government's practice of bulldozing Arab neighbourhoods in the Iranian province of Khuzestan, particularly the destruction of the Sepeedar Residential Complex where 4,000 Arabs were made homeless by security forces despite objections by members of parliament.

Mr Shadidzadeh, who lost his seat during last year's Majlis elections when "troublesome" reformists were barred from standing, indicated that he shared the frustration of Khuzestan's Ahwazi Arabs, who have endured "one hundred years of pain and sufferings."

He cast doubt on the ability of reformists to alleviate the suffering of Ahwazis within the current constitution, saying "our wishful thinking about reforms in Arab affairs by the Reformists has been only a mirage." He added that the government's refusal to allow Arab parties, such as the Islamic Wefagh Party, to contest elections and its continuing ban on Arabic language newspapers and magazines was denying Ahwazi Arabs the right to air their grievances in a peaceful and democratic fashion. The Iranian Arab politician called on President Khatami to "do your utmost in lowering the 'wall of mistrust' between the proud Iranian ethnicities, so that the 'infected wounds' of the Arab people of Ahwaz may heal."

In relation to the recent Ahwazi uprising, Shadidzadeh requested that the President release prisoners, especially children, women, and political and cultural activists affiliated with legal but unofficial organizations. He also asked the President to release the bodies of those killed in the protests so they can be buried and mourned. Innocent prisoners who played no role in the rioting should be compensated, he added.

Shadidzadeh, a reformist from Khuzestan, is a critic of the brutality of law enforcement forces in the province. In the past, he condemned the employment of Badr Brigade militias belonging to the Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution of Iraq (SCIRI), now members of Iraq's ruling coalition, against Ahwazi Arabs in Khuzestan. The SCIRI militias were used by the regime in December 2002 during a series of uprisings in the Khuzestan cities of Ahwaz, Khoramshahr and Koot-Abdollah. The revolt occurred after the regime decided to confiscate satellite dishes and close down shops selling music and video tapes of Arabic music and dancing. Around 300 youths aged between 12 and 18 were arrested by security forces and SCIRI militias.

Labels: elections

18 December, 2006

15 December, 2006

15 October, 2006

19 June, 2005

18 June, 2005

15 June, 2005

13 June, 2005

12 June, 2005

24 May, 2005