Ahwazi: Fear after News of Deportation and Death Sentence
DAMASCUS, 11 December (IRIN) - Ethnic Arab (Ahwazi) refugees from Iran now living in Damascus have expressed fear as news emerged that Syria has deported three more Ahwazi activists to Iran, where they face torture and execution.
"I thought I'd be protected here in this Arab state. In the past, we used to ask Syria for help in our struggle; now I am asking Europe for help in escaping Syria," said Abu Tarek, a native of the south-west corner of Iran that borders Iraq, Kuwait and the Gulf, once known as Arabistan after its ethnic majority but renamed Khuzestan by the Iranian government.
"They came at me like a pack of wolves. For a year they blindfolded me, electrocuted my hands, beat my penis and smashed my head against the wall," said Abu Tarek, describing his torture at the hands of Iranian security during 1987, a year before the end of the Iran-Iraq war. "One time I fell unconscious for two days and when I woke up I couldn't see out of my left eye."
As a campaigner for the rights and autonomy of Ahwazis, the Arab-Iranian community of Khuzestan, Abu Tarek - who asked IRIN not to reveal his full name out of concerns for his safety - is considered by
Six years into a second term in an Iranian jail on charges related to his political activism, Abu Tarek escaped earlier this year and fled to
Khuzestan produces around 90 per cent of all
Ahwazi refugees first began arriving in
The past two years has seen concern rising about the deteriorating human rights situation in Khuzestan where activists estimate some 1.5 million Arabs have been driven off their land by a series of vast state-sponsored industrial projects, coupled to massive organised influxes of Persian workers and their families.
According to human rights organisations, individuals promoting Arab rights in Khuzestan have been targeted, and access to the region has been denied to foreign and local journalists.
Six years into a second term in an Iranian jail on charges related to his political activism, Abu Tarek escaped earlier this year and fled to
Three Ahwazi activists, thought to be imprisoned in
Watling said relatives of two of the men, Rasool Mazra - whose family has resettled in
On 7 December, a source who spoke directly to the family of Taher Mazra told IRIN that Taher Mazra was, indeed, forcibly returned from
Both men had been recognised as refugees by the office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Laurens Jolles, acting head of the UNHCR in
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Both men are members of the Ahwazi Liberation Organization (ALO), the Ahwazis' leading political opposition movement, and according to their families they had been tortured since their recent captivity in
The third Ahwazi, Jamal Obaidy, Chair of Ahwazi Student Union in
The news followed two similar cases of deportation. Faleh Abdullah Mansuri, the 60-year-old head of the ALO who holds Dutch citizenship, was also arrested by Syrian security in April while he was visiting an Ahwazi friend in
Syrian authorities confirmed earlier this year that Mansuri, also a UNHCR recognised refugee, was deported to Tehran in May at the request of Iran, just a few weeks before the two countries signed a landmark agreement on military and security cooperation.
Mansuri is now reportedly in prison in
Saeed Saki, also a member of the ALO and a UNHCR refugee, had been due to be resettled in
Since an uprising by Ahwazis in April 2005 - a two-month campaign of civil unrest that culminated in a bomb attack on an oil installation east of Ahvaz - Iran has intensified its campaign against the Ahwazis, detaining more than 25,000, executing at least 131 while more than 150 have disappeared, according to the US-based Ahwazi Human Rights Organisation.
Amnesty International report that following the uprising hundreds of Khuzestan's Arabs were arrested, some were reportedly tortured, and at least two men were executed following unfair trials.
A source at the Iranian embassy in
"There is an agreement between