Democratic Solidarity Party of Al-Ahwaz Ahwazi Arab in Iran are faced with discrimination in the Iranian civil service. According to the University of Ahwaz, less than 1% of high administrative positions are guaranteed to Ahwazi Arab in the province. That means that almost 70% of the population of Ahwaz region, the Arabs, are held back from key and important governmental positions due to their ethnicity. Within the [INAUDIBLE] political representation, the Ahwazi Arab are unable to address the injustices faced by their people in the economic, cultural, political, and judicial space. Indigenous Ahwazi Arab students drop out of school at a rate of 30% at the elementary level, 50% at the secondary level, and 70% in high school because they are forced to study the official language, Farsi, a language which is not their own. The Ahwazi Arab people have been subjected to a forcible population transfer program. In the past 15 years, 1.2 million Ahwazis have been forcefully displaced into central provinces, whilst 1.5 million non-indigenous Persians were relocated into government-funded resettlement towns such as Ramin 1, 2, 3, and Shirinshahr in Arab cities in Ahwazi regions. More than 6,000 hectares of my tribe’s Ahwazi farmland, north of Shush, which has been taken to resettle the faithful non-indigenous Persians, according to the directives by the Ministry of Agriculture in the Revolutionary [INAUDIBLE]. Ahwazis cannot realize their economic, social, and cultural rights unless the Iranian state respects Ahwazi Arab minority collective rights and allow us internal autonomy to build our civil society and develop our culture, language, history, and economies. At the end, I would say that we, as Ahwazi youth, would like to be known as a nation, which is concerned with freedom, equality, justice, and prosperity for all the people in the world, particularly in Iran. Thank you very much.

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