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• 1 media/shutterstock_1113461903-1-1.jpg 2024-10-30T05:18:06-07:00 De-persify your Iran 36 The repression of Iranian ethnic and religious minorities image_header 2024-12-09T06:31:13-08:00 Like many countries that solidified a seemingly homogenous national identity during the 20th century, Iran undertook this process by repressing its minority populations. This repression did not discriminate against any type of minority, be it gender, ethnicity, religion, class, etc. In Iran, the struggles of minorities, especially ethnic and religious groups, are intertwined with broader issues of human rights and freedom. The country is home to various ethnic minorities, including Kurds, Arabs, Azeris, and Baluchis, as well as religious minorities such as Bahá’ís, Christians, and Jews. These groups have long faced systemic discrimination and repression under the Islamic Republic.
  In general, one can split the minority populations into religious minorities and ethnic minorities, though we see some overlap in both. It is unfortunately difficult to get up-to-date information on the sizes of these groups. 
      Persian is the largest ethnic group, comprising around 51-60% of the population depending on the source, but suffice to say they are more than half of the population. Azeri’s are the largest ethnic minority, at around 24%, then Gilaki and Mazandarani 8%, Kurd 7%, Arab 3%, Lur 2%, Baloch 2%, and Turkmen 2%. About 2% are classified as “other”.
      The largest religious group is Islam of course, 98% of the population identifies themselves as Muslim, though 89% is Shi’a, and 9% Sunni. Some sources will then claim that the Baha’i faith is the largest religious minority in Iran. It is hard to find an exact size or solid fact on this, as the Baha’i faith is not legally recognized as a faith in Iran, but it is estimated they number around 350,000. Then, there are Christians, between 40,000-80,000, Zoroastrians, approximately 25,000, and 9,000 Jewish (the largest Jewish population in the Middle East outside of Israel).
      All of these groups face some sort of discrimination from the Iranian government. Their languages are not taught in schools, nor their history and the provinces that have large populations of these minority groups are neglected and subject to much harsher government punishments. Balochistan, the province where many Baloch reside, was the site of a terrible massacre referred to as “Bloody Friday of 2022” when locals peacefully protested the rape of a fifteen-year-old by the police chief and stand in solidarity with Women, Life, Freedom, and armed special security shot at them, killing about 94 people, including Khodanoor Lojei.
  The Bahá’í community, in particular, is among the most persecuted religious minorities in Iran. Members of the Bahá’í faith are denied access to education, employment opportunities, and basic civil rights, as the Iranian government does not recognize their religion. As Arash Azizi explains in his book What Iranians Want, “Like other devout Bahá’ís, she was barred from partisan activity by her faith but had spent most of the past twenty years incarcerated solely due to her role as an organizer of Bahá’í affairs in Iran. Fariba had been barred from university education as she belonged to a religion not officially recognized by the regime”[1] Many Bahá’ís have been imprisoned simply for practicing their faith, and their leaders have often been targeted by the authorities. Numerous figures like Fariba Kamal-Abadi have been incarcerated for organizing Bahá’í affairs, reflecting the broader crackdown on religious freedom in the country. The state utilizes its ability to restrict access to resources, such as education in this instance, to control and encroach on the rights of religious minorities.
  For other religious minorities, there is a lack of spaces to practice anything outside of Shi’a Islam, even lacking a mosque for Sunni Muslims in Tehran. Christians and Jews regularly face harassment and regulation, and Iran’s intense anti-Israel stance, paired with the perception that most Jews support Zionism, makes the atmosphere very tense. Noting the rich and diverse history of the Iranian population, "Given the ever-increasing importance of ethnic communities in formation and enhancement of social consensus, scientific investigation of ethnic groups has received greater attention than before. Along the same lines, many experts maintain that national integrity and identity are rooted in ethnic communities and very old ethnic emotions as primitive nationalism." [2]
  This primitive nationalism leads ethnic minorities to face significant challenges. For instance, the Arab and Kurdish populations in Iran have been subjected to economic marginalization and cultural repression. “The integration of Iran’s diverse peoples was carried out by coercive measures, but also the prominent use of the Persian language in state education, administration, and the media.” [3] These communities are often deprived of the ability to celebrate their language and heritage openly, and political activists from these groups frequently face imprisonment or worse. The women-led protests that have emerged in recent years, such as the "Women, Life, Freedom" movement, reflect a broader intersectional struggle. Women from minority backgrounds are at the forefront of these efforts, highlighting how their oppression is intersectional and thus compounded.
  Iran’s minorities continually fight for a future where their cultural and religious identities are respected and protected, free from the discrimination and violence that has defined their experience under the current regime.
  
  an example of artistic voices amplifying shifting cultural dynamics of power and privilege, particularly women of the diaspora who, by shedding light on their experiences through visual media, can engage with people of all different backgrounds. 
  Parallel Lives: Women of the Iranian Diaspora by Rose Arts Museum.
  
  
  For a song that mentions the struggles of different ethnic minorities in Iran, check out Jang Zadeh by Mohsen Chavoshi. This song details the emotions and residual aftereffects of the Iran-Iraq war on the Iranian people. 
  
  
  [1] Azizi, Arash. "Yes, I Am a Woman: The Fight for Women’s Rights." In “What Iranians Want”
  London: Oneworld Publications, 2024.
  [2]Ahmady, K. (2022). A Peace-Oriented Investigation of the Ethnic Identity Challenge in Iran (A Study of Five Iranian Ethnic Groups with the GT Method).  International Journal of Kurdish Studies 7 (1), 1-40, https://doi.org/10.21600/ijoks.1039049
  [3] Farangis Ghaderi (2023). “Jin, Jiyan, Azadi and the Historical Erasure of Kurds.” International
  Journal of Middle East Studies 55, 718–723. https://doi.org/10.1017/S002074382300137X
  - E.E. & K.C.
• 1 media/Kurds in IRan.webp media/Kurdish people protesting.jpg media/Kurds in IRan.webp 2024-10-13T21:32:54-07:00 A Hidden Struggle 13 Oppressed minorities in Iran have gone unnoticed by the Iranian people; how has the Women, Life, Freedom brought awareness to their fight? image_header 2024-12-06T11:42:24-08:00 On September 16, 2022, Jina Mahsa Amini, a Kurdish woman, was murdered. Despite attempts to contain the spread of the protest, social media allowed for awareness of Jina’s murder to spread like wildfire. Women chanted Jin, Jiyan, Azadi at Jina's funeral, translating to Woman, Life, Freedom. In the following days, public outcry and mass protests in Kurdish cities and towns drey the attention of Iranians across the country(Ghaderi 718).  Although this is the start of Women's Life, Freedom, it is a turning point for another marginalized community, the Kurdish people. The oppression of the Kurds in Iran can be traced back to the fall of the Ottoman Empire, but it truly began under Reza Shah Pahlavi. From 1925-1979, Reza Shah Pahlavi and his son followed him to implement Persianization policies. These policies would ban the Kurdish language and restrict cultural expression. This was an attempt to promote a unified Persian culture and people. Following the 1979 Iranian revolution, the Islamic Republic continued to suppress Kurdish cultural and political expression, eventually amounting to violence and human rights violations against the Kurdish people living in Iran. The Kurdish people in Iran were facing an attempt to erase their identity, but then the murder of Jina Mahsa Amini happened. The murder, while also sparking the Women, Life, Freedom movement, brought attention to the oppression of the Kurdish people. Jina’s murder led to the Iranian people becoming aware of the Kurdish plight as well as the broad oppression of many minorities in Iran(Ghaderi 718). The Kurdish people in Iran use the Women, Life, Freedom movement to assert themselves in society and fight to reestablish their identity. But how does the Kurdish oppression connect to the Women, Life, Freedom movement, other than Jina? Understanding the Kurdish fight for their identity and the systemic oppression of minorities in Iran is imperative to understanding the Women, Life, Freedom movement because it is part of what the movement fights for. The WLF movement, while fighting for women's freedom and rights in Iran, acts as a proxy for the many minorities in Iran, such as the Balochis, Arabs, and Kurds, who struggle with cultural and political recognition. The systemic discrimination and cultural oppression of these minorities in Iran have largely gone unnoticed by the Iranian population. Although the WLF movement provides an avenue for these minorities to bring attention to their oppression, it is essential to recognize the negative consequences as well. One is the media and scholarly publications excluding Amini’s Kurdish name, Jina, and arguing against the Kurdish origins of Jin, Jiyan, Azadi(Ghaderi 720). These actions can be due to a continued effort for unification. Iran oppressed minorities to create a unified Persian people and culture, and now we can see the WLF movement excluding Kurdish aspects, again to form a unified front. The issues are systematic, and even today, Kurdish voices and the fight for their identity continue to be silenced.
  
  -Mathew Montiel
• 1 2024-10-30T08:00:48-07:00 Iran's Nationalism Problem 9 A look at minorities in Iran plain 2024-12-02T09:48:07-08:00
  Even in the context of mass demand for social reform, religious-based oppression remains
  widespread in Iran. Despite the prevalence of the Kurdish language, with over 30 million Kurdish
  speakers, Kurds remain a stateless people, and are thus, marginalized in countries across the
  modern Middle East (Ghaderi, 724). In this erasure, the systematic process of Persianization
  must be discussed, not only because of its historical implications, but its modern ones as well.
  Persianization in the Women Life Freedom movement means the translation of “Zin Zendegi
  Azadi” into “Jin Jian Azadi. It means calling the movement's central figure Mahsa Amini and
  ignoring Jina. This direction that the WLF movement has taken is reminiscent of the process of
  state building undertaken by Iran in the early to mid 20th century.
  
  The measures to suppress Kurdish literary traditions or even coercive measures had the effect of creating the image of the
  ideal Iranian; a Persian. This ideal was a member of a homogenous state, anyone who existed
  outside this concept was to be vilified and dehumanized, like in the military campaigns during
  the 1980s. (Ghaderi 722) The parallels between the marginalization of the Kurds in these two
  different time frames is reflective of a greater problem with Iranian national identity. Additionally,
  in “What Iranians Want: Women, Life Freedom,”: Arash Azizi provides insight into the
  perspectives of other groups that suffer discrimination.
  
  Religious minorities in Balochistan like Sunnis and Bahá’is, endure despite the state's predatory suppression of their religion. But the advocacy of
  cleric Moulavi Abdul Hamid represents opposition to the homogenous state and its continued
  repression. The need for a bottom up re-appraisal of ethnicity in Iran is a process that must be
  enacted. It’s not too late for the intersectional nature of the WLF to allow for an incorporation of
  this process, instead of drifting further towards the plans for Persianization drawn up by the
  regime of yesterday. However, the nature of the WLF movement can and has been expanded to
  meet the needs of other oppressed groups in the past, and this fact must be kept in the forefront
  if real structural change is to result from the movement.
  
  References:
         Azizi, Arash. What Iranians Want: Women, Life, Freedom. Simon & Schuster, 2023
  
        Ghaderi F. Jin, Jiyan, Azadi and the Historical Erasure of Kurds. International Journal of Middle East Studies. 2023;55(4):718-723.