:Ahwazi delegation from 29th HRC Iranian regime deliberately oppressing the Ahwazi women…Video

Ahwazi delegation formed by Ms. Nabyeh Ahwazi member of the Ahwazi Women’s Union and Mr. Faisal

Maramazi Executive Director of the Ahwazi Centre for Human Rights has participated in the twenty-ninth session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday 29-June-2015.

 

Ahwazi delegation has received an invitation from Austrian’s Sudwind organization for Human Rights to attend the parallel event of Violence and discrimination against women in Iran that taken place during the 29thsession of Human Rights Council in Geneva.

The non-Persian’s women has contributed in that event to speak about the Iranian human rights violations against women, where Ms. Nabyeh spoken about the violence against women in Al-Ahwaz, Ms. Jale Tabrizi explained the violation against South Azerbaijani’s women, Ms. Solmaz Ahanngari expressed the situation of the women in Turkmen Sahra and Ms. Parasto Fatemi talked about Acid attacks in Iran.

Following is the Ahwazi speech in 29th HRC:

 

Ladies and Gentlemen,

On behalf of the Ahwazi Arab women, I would like to extend my greetings to this audience, who participates in this important conference concerning women’s human rights. I would like to thank you for providing us with this precious opportunity to disclose the unspeakable atrocities that are systematically perpetrated against the Ahwazi women.

I come from a region rich in oil. A region where the indigenous people have long been forgotten. For this reason, I must say that similar to other non-Persian nations constituting the so-called Iran, Ahwazi Arab people, who are mainly located in the south and the southwest of Iran – in a province that has been renamed from Alahwaz to Khuzestan, have had their voices severely suppressed and suffocated. They also had their Arabic identity denied under the Pahlavi monarchy and the current totalitarian Islamic Republic regime.

My heart breaks when I think about the abject and inhuman treatment that the Ahwazi Arab women receive on a daily basis. They suffer double persecution by the Iranian regime due to their ethnicity and gender. This happens in every single aspect of their lives, in areas such as education, health, politics and social life. While Ahwazi Arab men are second-class citizens, Ahwazi women are regarded as a third class. Illiteracy among Ahwazi Arab women is around 80 percent, compared to around 50 percent for Ahwazi men and 27% for Iran as a whole. Ahwazi women suffer from health problems due to lack of adequate health facilities. As a result, Ahwazi women suffer from gynecological problems, resulting in a high incidence of infertility, stillbirths, and birth deformities.

Ahwazi Arab women are also subjected to state terrorism. In the recent years, the wives of Ahwazi political and cultural activists have been arrested and imprisoned, along with their small children, in order to put pressure on their husbands to confess to crimes they did not commit.

Women and children are often being held as hostages by the Iranian regime and often kept in detention centers for months without charge. Some Ahwazi women, who were pregnant, miscarried or were forced to give birth in prison without adequate medical assistance and in unsanitary conditions. An example is Ms. Fahima Ismail Badawi, who gave birth to her daughter Salma in prison. She was held in custody as punishment for refusing to denounce her husband, Ali Matouri Zadeh. She refused to do so and is currently serving a 15-year prison sentence following a secretive trial by Branch 3 of Ahwaz Revolutionary Court. Her husband was tortured and coerced to confess that he was a British secret agent involved in terrorist attacks. He later was executed.

As the Ahwazi Arab women demand their rights and stand against this violation, the Iranian dictator regime perceives them as threats against the security of the regime.

In fact, it is a common policy of the Iranian regime to accuse the Ahwazi men and women of being a national threat against the integrity of the country as a last step to liquidate the Ahwazi people or to at least deprive them of basic social and political rights. In the case of women, they can be arrested, their licenses, properties, and belongings can be confiscated, their rights to get an education can be taken away, they can lose their jobs, and they are prohibited to work in the future. All of these rights have been taken away, and the Ahwazi women do not have control over their lives anymore.

In the end, I’d like to thank every one of you for your attention and I hope that the UN and all other international organizations take into serious consideration all the violations and oppression committed against women in my country Ahwaz by the tyrant Iranian Regime.

Thank you very much!

To watch the video of the speech please click   HERE

 

Ahwazi Centre for Human Right

01-07-2015