Ahwazi Arab Giban Abiedawi reportedly died under torture. There are no further details on where he died, the charges against him or his background.

Ahwazi Arab journalist Mohammad Hassan Fallahiya has sent a letter to the EU High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, smuggled from Evin Prison where he is being held and delivered to Solana by the Human Rights Activists in Iran group. Fallahiya was a correspondent for the Iranian government-owned Al-Alam Arabic language satellite news network and has worked for a number of other news agencies. The letter is dated 11 October 2007.

Your Excellency, Mr. Javier Solana,

I am pleased and honoured to send this letter to you. I am an innocent man and am behind bars in an Iranian prison for my published articles and journalism. What national security did I put at risk by my journalism?

Your Excellency,

It takes a long time to talk about the problems experienced by our Arab people in Al-Ahwaz which is located in south Iran. These people are starving although the land is fertile; people are dying of thirst, although there are ample rivers. My homeland's prisons are full of prisoners demanding their legitimate national rights; the mouths of these people's relatives are shut over due to the fear of the executioner; and my homeland's gallows are full of hanged heads.

[Letter continues...]

The Ahwazi Arab movement received a significant boost on Sunday when Ahwazi Arab and Danish human rights activists launched the Dansk Ahwazi Venskabsforening (DAVF, Danish Ahwazi Friendship Society) in Copenhagen.

The new society is modelled on the British Ahwazi Friendship Society, which has successfully raised the profile of the Ahwazi Arab struggle in Britain and Europe. Denmark hosts many Ahwazi refugees who have fled persecution in Iran and is a centre of activity in the Ahwazi Arab community in Europe.

Ali Naseri, an Ahwazi activist living in Denmark, opened the launch meeting with an outline of the suffering Ahwazi Arabs endure in Iran...

The following is a translation of an interview conducted by Germany's award-winning on-line current affairs magazine, Telepolis, with Daniel Brett, Chairman of the British Ahwazi Friendship Society.

Union plans for a Shi'ite Iraq?

By Peter Muehlbauer

Interview with Daniel Brett on the situation of Ahwazi Arabs in Iran

The Iranian government has problems with minorities: notably the Kurdish separatists in the Northwest, a little less known are the Balochis in the South East and largely unknown are the "Ahwazis", who are predominantly Shiite Arabs in Khuzestan, in the south-west of the country...

A time-bomb planted in public toilets in Ahwaz City was defused on Saturday, according to Iran's Fars News Agency.

Local security chief Rahim Heidari said the bomb was discovered in Taleqani Square at 10.50am and security services were hunting the culprits. He said the aim of the attempted bomb attack was unclear.

At least 15 Ahwazi Arabs have been executed in relation to bomb attacks in Ahwaz City, although Iranian and international human rights organisations and UN human rights experts have criticised their trials as flawed.