Racism in Iran

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Racism in Iran encompasses various manifestations of racism between the inhabitants of the country. A UN panel in 2019 said "Arabs, Kurds, and other minorities in Iran face discrimination because of their ethnicity." [1] In 2010, The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) of the UN urged Iran to tackle racism on Arab, Azeri, Balochi, and Kurdish communities and some communities of non-citizens. [2]

Contents

Arabs

Epithets such as Mush-Khor (lit.'rodent eaters' in Persian) and Marmulak-Khor (lit.'lizard eaters') are used for both Sunni and Shiite Arabs. [3]

Azerbaijanis

In 1926, the Azerbaijani language became prohibited in Iran for the first time. The head of the state at the time, Reza Shah appointed Dr. Mohseni as the chair of the "Cultural Office of Azerbaijan", who was infamous for his order: [4]

Put donkey reins on whoever dares to speak Turkish in the classroom and throw them in the stable amongst the donkeys.

Tork-e Khar is a phrase traditionally used for Azerbaijanis [5] and Turks, [6] literally meaning the "Turkish donkey". [5]

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anti-Turkish sentiment</span> Hostility, fear or intolerance against Turkish peoples

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The article describes the state of race relations and racism in the Middle East. Racism is widely condemned throughout the world, with 174 states parties to the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination by April 8, 2011. In different countries, the forms that racism takes may be different for historic, cultural, religious, economic or demographic reasons.

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In the Arab world, racism targets non-Arabs and the expat majority of the Arab states of the Persian Gulf coming from South Asian groups as well as Black, European, and Asian groups that are Muslim; non-Arab ethnic minorities such as Armenians, Africans, the Saqaliba, Southeast Asians, Jews, Kurds, and Coptic Christians, Assyrians, Persians, Turks, and other Turkic peoples, and South Asians living in Arab countries of the Middle East.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anti-Kurdish sentiment</span> Hostility, prejudice, or discrimination against Kurds

Anti-Kurdish sentiment, also known as anti-Kurdism or Kurdophobia, is hostility, fear, intolerance or racism against the Kurdish people, Kurdistan, Kurdish culture, or Kurdish languages. A person who holds such positions is sometimes referred to as a "Kurdophobe".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Spread of Islam among Kurds</span> Islamic conversion of Kurds

Spread of Islam among Kurds started in the 7th century with the Early Muslim conquests. Before Islam, the majority of Kurds followed a western Iranic pre-Zoroastrian faith which derived directly from Indo-Iranian tradition, some elements of this faith survived in Yezidism, Yarsanism and Kurdish Alevism. When Islam first appeared, the Kurds were divided between the Byzantine and Sassanian Empires. The term "Kurd" back then referred to any Iranian nomad from any Iranian ethnic group whether in central Asia or western Iran regardless of geographic location or Iranian ethnicity. Jaban al-Kurdi and his son Meymun al-Kurdi were the first Kurds who converted to Islam and Khalil al-Kurdi as-Semmani was one of the first Kurdish tabi'uns. Mass conversion of Kurds to Islam didn't happen until the reign of Umar ibn Al-Khattab, second caliph of the Rashidun Caliphate between 634-644. The Kurds first came into contact with the Arab armies during the Arab conquest of Mesopotamia in 637. The Kurdish tribes had been an important element in the Sasanian Empire, and initially gave it strong support as it tried to withstand the Muslim armies, between 639 - 644. Once it was clear that the Sassanians would eventually fall, the Kurdish tribal leaders one by one submitted to Islam and their tribe members followed in accepting Islam. Today the majority of Kurds are Sunni Muslims, and there are Alevi and Shia minorities. Sunni Muslim Kurds are mostly Shafiʽis and Hanafis.

References

  1. "UN anti-racism panel finds Iran discriminating against Arabs, Kurds, other minoritiesdate=August 27, 2010". Associated Press, Fox. 2015-03-27. Archived from the original on September 3, 2010. Retrieved September 20, 2010.
  2. "The U.N. urged Iran to tackle racism". Reuters. August 27, 2010. Archived from the original on August 30, 2010. Retrieved September 20, 2010.
  3. Hagigat et al. 2015, pp. 12–13.
  4. Asgharzadeh 2007, pp. 142.
  5. 1 2 Broers, Laurence (25 July 2019). Armenia and Azerbaijan: Anatomy of a Rivalry. Edinburgh University Press. p. 371. This is symptomatic of a tradition depicting Azerbaijanis negatively as tork-e khar ('Turkish donkeys'), i.e. rural and backward.
  6. Hagigat et al. 2015, pp. 13.

Bibliography