The self-immolation of a man named Jassim Moramazi on 27
August has thrust the desperate situation of poverty and unemployment for
Iran's Ahwazi Arab community into the spotlight.
Moramazi was married with a child, living in the Al-Thawra
neighborhood of Ahwaz in southwestern Iran. He had suffered from anxiety,
depression and shame due to the helplessness he felt about him and his family's
situation, according to Ahwazi rights groups working inside Ahwaz who wished to
remain anonymous.
A graphic video shared on YouTube reportedly captured the
moments after set himself on fire. Several people managed to quickly extinguish
the flames, and Moramazi was admitted to Taleghani hospital in Ahwaz city.
Local sources stated that his burns were too severe for doctors to treat. He
died shortly afterward.
His wasn't the only case of suicide among the Ahwazi Arab
minority in August, and local activists are warning of a spike in the number of
men taking their own lives. The Ahwazi Centre for Human Rights reported that
several others — Hamid Maniat, Ali Hazbawi, Sayed Falah Moussawi, and Shahab Bani
Tamim — hung themselves within the month.
Their stories shared one thing in common: They were all
family men who felt helpless in their ability to provide for their families
because of persecution by the Iranian government or their inability to secure
employment to provide for their families. Ahwazi Arabs suffer poverty,
unemployment and discrimination
The region where the Ahwazi Arab community is most present
in Iran has been troubled by a deep economic crisis that has hindered its
indigenous Arab population from securing its most basic needs.
Until a century ago, Arab Ahwaz was a primarily autonomous region
in Iran until the Pahlavi monarchy took over and made an effort to end ethnic
autonomy across Iran in 1925. The Ahwaz region is responsible for some of
Iran's biggest oil and gas fields, and some of the most nourishing and arable
lands for Iran's agricultural industry. Despite these valuable resources, the
region's economy continues to struggle, and the indigenous population see
little of the rewards of this wealth. They are often the victims of untreated
illness, hunger and deprivation.
The Iranian regime systematically denies Ahwazi Arabs jobs
in the local oil, gas and petrochemical industries. The government has also
constructed a multitude of dams diverting water from Arab areas to Persian
areas such as the Isfahan, Yazd, Kerman, and Qom provinces. These dams have
only served to worsen the devastation from a drought currently plaguing the
region, destroying the local agriculture, fishing, and palm industries.
The unemployment rate among the Ahwazi Arab youth has now
risen to 81%. Nour Mohammed Pur, Iran's general director of cooperatives, work,
and social welfare, stated that 5% of Ahwazis looking for jobs have pre-high
school education, 55% of those seeking work only completed secondary school,
and 45% of those Ahwazi job seekers hold university degrees. A ‘systematic
policy…that intends to kill the spirit of national resistance’
Karim Dohimi, an Iranian Ahwazi rights activist based in
London, told Global Voices that the situation of “poverty, unemployment and
racial ethnic discrimination” has led to a “massive increase” in the number of
young Ahwazi men turning to suicide.
Dohimi said unemployment in particular has worsened
recently, thanks to a combination of large numbers of ethnic Persians arriving
in Ahwaz, and anti-Arab discrimination in hiring practices:
The preference of officials and institutions’ authorities in
recruiting non-Arab workforces deprive the local Ahwazi Arabs of access to
employment opportunities in all sectors. This is a part of the systematic
policy of the occupying regime that intends to kill the spirit of national
resistance of young Arabs, forcing them to search for subsistence outside their
homeland of Ahwaz. There are people who have had to change their first and last
name so as to hide their Ahwazi Arab identity to get hired as even Arabic names
cannot be tolerated in the workplace let alone speaking Arabic or wearing
Arabic clothes.
Given the conditions that Ahwazi Arabs are forced to bear,
human rights defenders are sounding the alarm before things become explosive.
It remains to be seen if the world sits up and takes notice.
Source: Globalvoices
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