Participants of South Azerbaijani Turks’ rally in Brussels condemn Iran's discriminatory policies

A mass rally under the motto "Freedom, Justice and National Government" with the participation of the Turks of South Azerbaijan took place in the Belgian capital Brussels on March 25.

The rally participants voiced the final statement and demands of the march, according to Azertag.

It was brought to the attention of the free international community that the chauvinist and fascist governments ruling Iran for about a hundred years have pursued a harsh policy of colonialism and exploitation against non-Persian nationalities. During these years, historical treasures, civilisations, economies, nature, political rights, in short, everything that belonged to the oppressed peoples in Iran have been plundered, all movements for rights and justice have faced brutal repression.

It was stressed that the Pahlavi regime exerted the heaviest pressure on the enslaved peoples, especially on the Azerbaijani Turks and other Turkic nationalities of Iran, and even went so far as to systematically destroy historical monuments of Azerbaijan. With the hope of gaining freedom and justice, the Azerbaijani Turks played an important role in overthrowing the Pahlavi regime, but unfortunately, nothing changed during the regime of the Islamic Republic, and even racial fascism has been added to national fascism.

Azerbaijani Turks, who had been leading a long struggle for their rights since the Islamic Revolution, said "No!" to the Vilayat-e-Fahih system in the 1979 revolution, and although the constitution demanded the implementation of a progressive law on provinces and regions, the regime's response was only bullets and repression.

It was noted that the Iranian regime is currently in crisis and the people living in different regions of the country, facing various hardships, have been protesting against the regime for several months now. In the protests of recent months, the Azerbaijani Turks and other Turkic entities, the Qashqai Turks have sacrificed hundreds of their sons in the struggle against this criminal regime from Tehran to Qazvin, Zanjan and Tabriz.

All oppressed peoples in Iran are presently determined to restore their violated rights within the framework of universal rights and laws, to continue their sovereign and national life in freedom and justice, and are experiencing incredible difficulties along the way.

The world is closely watching the people of Iran for a reason and the international community is admiring and appreciating their struggle. Although there is a lot of discrimination and double standards in this revolution as well. In particular, the rhetoric of the Persian-language media abroad, monopolised by a reactionary current, including against the Turkic people of South Azerbaijan, follows a policy not very different from that of the regime media, which boycotts their struggle and imposes censorship. In recent months, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev was the only state official who supported the protest against the torment of the people of Southern Azerbaijan in the international arena, including within the Organisation of Turkic States.

The participants expressed deep gratitude to President Aliyev and ask him, the distinguished president, to continue to support their rights in the international arena.

 “Today we are here to support young people who are standing up for their rights at the risk of their lives on the streets of the cities of southern Azerbaijan under the slogan of 'Freedom, Justice, National Government'. Although the oppressed peoples of Iran have a number of common goals and demands, each nation has its own demands. The main demands of the Turks of South Azerbaijan are:

- We demand that countries around the world deny legitimacy to the Iranian regime and sever political and economic ties with this regime;

- We condemn the chauvinist regime of Iran with its medieval mindset to acquire nuclear weapons of mass destruction; we consider this a potential threat to the existence of peoples living in Iran as well as to neighbouring countries and the entire democratic world. We, therefore, demand that the nations of the world abandon their conciliatory policies towards the Iranian regime and take serious preventive measures;

- The Iranian regime arrested thousands of innocent people during peaceful protests in the country. Violent repression was used against the protesters. We demand the international community and human rights organisations to put pressure on the Iranian regime to release prisoners in Iran and take necessary steps in this direction;

- The Iranian regime is constantly perpetrating terrorist acts in neighbouring countries, kidnapping people and committing terrorist acts against foreign nationals inside the country. The armed attack on the Embassy of the Republic of Azerbaijan in Tehran is one of the latest examples of this. We demand the countries of the world to take this issue seriously and include CEPAH, the main military and economic subdivision of the Iranian regime, in the list of terrorist organizations. It should be noted that Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC or Sepah) is mainly responsible for the spread of terrorism in the Middle East and even in the world;

- We slam the aggressive rhetoric and threats of the Iranian regime against Azerbaijan and declare that we support Azerbaijan with all our might;

- We condemn the Iranian regime's support for the war of official Moscow against Ukraine and Russia's military assistance and support the territorial integrity of Ukraine;

-The Iranian regime knowingly commits the most brutal and atrocious crimes against women and girls by organizing chemical attacks against them. We want the free world not to remain indifferent to this medieval atrocity and to raise a voice of protest against the Iranian regime;” they said.

- we want the countries of the world to recognize the pluralism and multi-ethnicity of Iranian society and to take this issue into account in their relations with the citizens of Iran. As Iran is a multinational and multicultural country, we demand that the languages of all nations be official. We are against the ideology of "one nation, one language, one homeland";

- We condemn the Iranian regime's continued colonisation policy of assimilation of non-Persian peoples and, in particular, the Azerbaijani, Gashqai, Turkmen, Khorasan and other Turks;

- The colonised peoples in Iran have demands for self-determination under international law. The slogan "Freedom, Justice, National Government" is today most frequently heard in Southern Azerbaijan, among the Hashgayis and Turkmens, and essentially sums up our demands. We want the freedom-loving people of the world to support our struggle to achieve the legitimate demands of us Turks;

- The Iranian regime is a killer of nature and the environment. This regime has destroyed nature and the environment throughout Iran. The deliberate draining of Lake Urmia has become a large-scale environmental disaster in Southern Azerbaijan, threatening the lives of tens of millions of people and causing serious damage to all living beings and the environment around it. We want the international community to put pressure on the Iranian regime to save Lake Urmia before it is too late;

- in the recent protests in South Azerbaijan and other Turkic regions of Iran, especially among the Gashgai Turks, many of our young people became martyrs, hundreds of people were injured and thousands of our compatriots were illegally arrested. These facts were not widely covered in the media sponsored by internal and external Iranian opposition forces. We strongly condemn such discriminatory policies against Azerbaijani and other Turks living in Iran.

Long live freedom and justice!

May the Islamic Republic of Iran with its medieval mindset be destroyed!