This letter was originally sent by Bahram Sadat-Tehrani on April 27th, 2009 due to his concerns with pan-Turkism. Mr. Sadat-Tehrani has done extensive research on pan-Turkism and Iran.
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Dear Durbin Review Conference,
You have a video posted on your website which shows Fakhteh Zamani from Iran claiming that the Azeri language is banned:
http://www.un.org/durbanreview2009/video.shtml
Allow me to kindly inform you that the Azeri language in Iran is not banned. Azeri-Turkic is represented by its own TV, radio, newspapers, music, videos, books, magazines and etc. throughout Iran. To demonstrate this point, the leader of the country, Ayatollah Khaemeni speaks Azeri in public:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqSkxgtrjT4
http://www.irannegah.com/Video.aspx?id=423
As noted by Annika Rabo, Bo Utas, “The role of the state in West Asia“, Swedish Research institute in Istanbul , 2005. pg 156. has an excerpt which states:
There is in fact, a considerable publication (book, newspaper, etc.) taking place in the two largest minority languages in the Azerbaijani language and Kurdish…
To put it simply: Fakhteh Zamani is not saying the truth: She is distorting the truth under the guise of human rights. She is in fact promoting the racist narratives of pan-Turkist ideology. Human rights is indeed a noble concept, however this too can be abused to advance latent political agendas. In this case, the political agenda is pan-Turkism. This racialist ideology has been responsible for the genocide of 1.5 million Armenians, 1 million Assyrians, 500000 Greeks and also the Dersim ethnocide in the last century.
We are not talking about tens, or hundreds of people, but the actual genocide of millions of people as a result of a racist, ethno-centrist ideology. It is unfortunate that Miss Zamani is aligned with such a movement. The Durbin conference failed to refer to pan-Turkism which is no different (as a racialist movement) than Nazism.
Miss Zamani is tied with pan-Turkist groups and has called Iran a “so called country” and even accuses Kurdish parties like Kurdish democratic party of Iran of being a terrorist organization (in line with her pan-Turkist views).
Please review her background here where she explicitly states that she does not believe in the territorial integrity of Iran:
https://www.kavehfarrokh.com/articles/pan-turanism/the-futility-of-advocating-pan-turanism-the-case-of-madame-zamani/
It is of utmost important that your conference is not misused for the purpose of advancing political pan-Turkism (along with its genocidal legacy) under the guise of human rights. Pan-Turkism which Miss Zamani promotes is responsible for the genocide of 1.5 million Armenians, 500,000 Greeks and 1 million Assyrians.
If pan-Turkism is not clearly exposed, we will witness more genocide of Kurds (already a white genocide in progress in Turkey), Persians, Talysh (already a white genocide in progress in the republic of Azerbaijan) and other Iranian peoples by pan-Turkists. I urgently ask that you to remove Miss Zamani from your video and prevent pan-Turkists from using (or abusing) your platform to advance their agenda.
Your due attention to this matter is most appreciated.
My Best Regards
Bahram Sadat-Tehrani
