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| Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General of the United Nations |
His Excellency,
The Secretary-General of the United Nations,
Over thirty million Turks live in Iran, residing in nearly all provinces. The majority live in South Azerbaijan, across six provinces: West Azerbaijan, East Azerbaijan, Ardabil, Zanjan, Qazvin, and Hamadan.
Since the reign of Reza Shah (1925), linguistic assimilation has been a central policy of the Iranian state. This policy is justified by the ideology of "one nation, one language" and the supposed "superiority of the Persian language, culture, and civilization" over other minority languages in Iran. Nationalist historiography has misrepresented Turks as "originally Aryans" whose language changed due to the Mongol invasion.
Today, Turks are regarded as second-class citizens. After the Iranian Islamic Revolution of 1979, despite changes in the government’s structure, the policies of assimilation and oppression against non-Persian ethnic and linguistic groups have persisted. The Turks of Azerbaijan have been a primary target of this forced assimilation.
The ongoing Aryanist racism in Iran threatens the survival of its diverse cultures and languages.
In recent times, the persecution and arrest of Azerbaijani Turk cultural activists have intensified.
As part of their ongoing struggle for rights, Azerbaijani Turk student activists urge the United Nations to pay serious attention to the violation of ethnic group rights in Iran.
Regards,
A group of Azerbaijani Turk Student Activists from Iran
December 10, 2007