Jeune Street

The 30th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution in Iran is focusing the world’s attention on the country, and Al-Jazeera has produced a series of articles on “Iran after the Revolution.” Among these is one focusing on the Ahwazi Arabs, an ethnic minority living in the oil-rich area of the country. Although the Foreign Policy Centre report I worked on last year didn’t address the Ahwazis, the journalist featured some of the analysis:

Geoffrey Cameron, a researcher at the London-based Foreign Policy Centre (FPC), told Al Jazeera: “A state’s sovereignty implies a responsibility to all of its citizens, and Iran continues to trample on the rights of marginal groups.”

“If Iran wants to claim a leadership role in the international community it needs to begin by addressing the claims of women and ethnic and religious minorities to basic civil rights.”

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The FPC believes that a group of ”hard-line” clerics have enforced their version of Islam and that this has become the official doctrine of the government.

“Iran’s history is characterised by rich debate over the meaning of Shia doctrine and the implications of theology, and much of this diversity has been suffocated in the Islamic Republic,” Cameron told Al Jazeera.

“As a consequence, women and minorities are subjected to constraints on their freedoms: Bahais are treated as ‘infidels’ without rights, the private lives of women are regulated by the state, and Sunni Kurds are denied basic religious freedoms.”

You can read the article here, and the FPC report here.