Ahwaz Studies Centre Hamed Aljebari Dear ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted that I find myself among you at this conference to discuss the issue of the systematic violation of human rights in Iran and in particular, the rights of oppressed nationalities in Iran. I am highly grateful to the conference organisers for giving me the opportunity to be able to discuss this important topic. I hope that the conference will be successful in its work programme. I also want to extend my thanks to all the participants at the conference who are interested in human rights discussions relating to those who feel they have been forgotten. Dear colleagues! Iran is a multi-national, multi-religion and multi-linguist territorial geography. During the era of the Pahlavi monarchy in Iran, these differences were ignored by the government, and systematic and planned efforts were made to assimilate all nationalities of Iran into the Persian nationality, Persian language and Shiaa religion. The rise of the Islamic Republic's policy of assimilation brought a religious aspect to the political agenda. This time, activists in the legal arena against nationalities, based on religious law, charges such as opposition to the revolution, waging war against God, separatism and other aspects were subjected to long-term imprisonment and suffered the most brutal torture, violence and execution . Currently many of these activists remain within the prisons of the regime. Discrimination in the legal aspects is legitimised in the Islamic Republic of Iran: A few such areas are mentioned below: On the basis of Article 13 of the constitution, only the Iranian Zoroastrians, Jews and Christians are recognised as religious minorities; other religions are not recognised and are not free in their religious ceremonies. According to Article 15 of this Act, the common official language and script of the Iranian people is Persian. Accordingly, the language and script is not entitled to legal recognition of non-Persian nationalities. In 2012 Iran executed 360 people. Among those executed, at least three defendants were under the age of 18 years old at the time of their execution. Although the reason for issuing and enforcing such sentences on charges included drug trafficking, smuggling, murder, crime and espionage. Many of those executed were Iranian political activists who were put to death as a result of such accusations. The cohorts of the Baha'i faith, along with the cohorts of the Yarsan religion, even as residents, are not allowed to promote their religions or their languages, or to hold their ritual ceremonies. There are in excess of one million Sunni Muslims in the capital city, Tehran, but they are not allowed to build a mosque, even if this is done with their own money.