RECENT HUMAN RIGHTS ISSUES OF AZERBAIJANI TURKS IN IRAN
This report mainly focuses on the sociocultural, environmental, and political situation of the people living in the Azerbaijan region of Iran. The primary sources of this report are collected from human rights defenders, media organizations, journals, and articles. In recent years many factors influenced the human rights situation in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Besides COVID-19, the pandemic mismanagement of natural resources had a significant impact on the livelihood of the people in Iran. In addition to the livelihood struggles for people, issues such as ethnolinguistic discrimination and environmental problems, the blockage of democracy, and political representation for ethnic minorities2 made these groups demand their fundamental rights in streets instead of official political platforms.
Arbitrary arrests of peaceful protestors and the concerning situation of the prisons in providing the necessary healthy environment in the COVID-19 pandemic are among the issues that will also be addressed in this report.
The first part of the report will present the deprivation of Azerbaijani Turks in Iran from learning their
mother tongue as their constitutional right, the arrestment of civil rights activists due to
sociocultural issues, the struggle to choose Turkic names for newborn babies, and the issue of
child marriage.
The second part of the report will mainly focus on the water shortage and the mismanagement of natural resources that have led to many hardships and protests in Iran. The demonstrations of the Azerbaijani Turks in Iran in solidarity with the Khuzestan Protests in 20213, the arrestment of peaceful protestors, and environmental concerns will be the main focus of this part. The third part will elaborate the link between the blockage of political representation of the Azerbaijani Turks and the Covid-19 pandemic. Moreover, this part will present the situation of political prisoners and the recent hunger strikes by some of these prisoners. Finally, this report will put forward its requests from the authorities to take action against the concerning situation
