Association for the Human Rights of the Azerbaijani people in Iran (Norway)
I would like to take this valuable opportunity to reflect part of the voice of the tens of millions
of the Azerbaijani Turks living in Iran. On the front line of the awakening movement to
defend and advocate for our ethnic and linguistic rights stand volunteer youths who use every
diverse means in the media and digital world. They have proved to be successful in
dissemination of information and mobilization of resources better than many other
organizations.
The main challenge seems to be how information can be reached out to other side and the
mainstream international community and media. Here there is huge a gap. What is known to
us is that there are a lot of unbelievable new ?? information news and historical happening
from minority in Iran about which still international community and media is unaware.
However, education in minority language is forbidden in the Iranian official educational
system. There is no language academy to protect and maintain our assimilated mother
language which has been left completely unprotected.
This is also a place to our identity which has been inhumanly denied and offended by the
official mainstream bureaucracy. Adoptation of official educational system to accommodate
Minority language respect and acceptance of their own identity and culture seems to be far
away from today's reality and contemporary Iran. We can only dream about this, as well as
human rights education from a young age seems to be unrealistic in Iran. Science, human
rights and democracy are officially considered to be Western and foreign agenda against
national—(cut off by chair)