The Refugee Action Coalition Sydney released this statement on April 20.
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More than 100 Ahwazi Arabs from across the country converged on Canberra to protest at the Immigration department and at the Iranian embassy on April 20.
The Ahwazi are a persecuted minority in south-west of Iran; the most oil-rich region. Ahwazis are denied the right to education in their own language. April 15 marks the 10th anniversary of the peaceful Ahwazi intifada against forced displacement, discrimination and persecution of the indigenous Arabs by the Iranian regime.
In the 2005 Intifada, the Iranian regime gunned down at least 130 civilians in cold blood. At least 2000 were incarcerated and more killings were carried out in the following months and years.
At least four Ahwazis were executed last year. In January, two Ahwazi Arab teachers, Hadi Rashedi and Hashem Shaabani, and on June 12, Iranian authorities informed the families of Ali Chabishat and Seyed Khaled Mousavi, that they had been secretly executed and buried, regardless of appeals by the United Nations.
The Ahwazis will protest against the detention of Ahwazi Arabs in Australia and on Manus and Nauru and against the on-going persecution by the Iranian regime. It is estimated that more than 100 are in detention in Australia and offshore. About 1000 are on bridging visas in the community waiting to be processed.
On May 28 last year, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop issued a statement expressing Australia's concern at the use of the death penalty, ongoing human rights abuses in Iran, including the mistreatment of ethnic and religious minorities.
But in her visit to Iran last week, she said nothing about such persecution.
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