Al Arabiya Farsi - September 1, 2017
Following the release of a list of restrictions imposed on becoming a teacher in Iran, including the requirement of having no accent, the Congress of Iranian Federal Nationalities issued a statement describing this policy as linguistic apartheid in Iran and another link in the chain of injustice and discrimination in the country.
In recent days, Iran’s Ministry of Education published a directive outlining the hiring criteria for teachers. This guideline, drafted according to Articles 1 and 2 of Clause 12 of the Teacher and Staff Selection Law, stipulates that candidates for teaching positions must not only be free of physical conditions listed in the directive but also must not have a “heavy accent” when pronouncing Persian letters.
The publication of this directive has provoked widespread criticism. In its statement, the Congress of Iranian Federal Nationalities called the no-accent requirement a form of linguistic apartheid and an extension of racial, linguistic, and ideological discrimination embedded in hiring policies, unprecedented globally.
The Congress emphasized that "Iran is a multi-national country with diverse ethnicities and nationalities," each with its own distinct culture, religion, language, and history. It stated that various non-Persian nationalities, including Baloch, Turk, Turkmen, Kurd, Gilak, Talysh, Lur, Arab, Mazandarani, and others, have long endured oppression, exile, torture, and executions in their struggle against linguistic, religious, and racial discrimination.
The statement argued that, aside from the often irrelevant physical health conditions tied to teaching, the requirement of having no accent in speaking Persian is essentially another form of repression against non-Persian nationalities. It is a clear manifestation of linguistic apartheid in Iran, which can be addressed in international forums such as the United Nations, UNESCO, democratic parliaments, and human rights organizations.
The Congress warned that if the no-accent requirement, like other anti-people and anti-minority laws in Iran, is implemented, non-Persian nationalities would lose the opportunity to work in official education centers, even for teaching in Persian.
The statement added that this measure would add yet another link to the chain of injustice and discrimination in Iran. Students who are already deprived of education in their mother tongue and forced to learn in a language other than their own would now be denied teachers who speak their native language. This, it argued, would cause irreparable psychological harm in the future.
In conclusion, the Congress of Iranian Federal Nationalities condemned these "anti-people and inhumane laws of the Islamic Republic of Iran" and asserted that preventing the enforcement of such discriminatory hiring policies, as well as securing the rights of marginalized nationalities, can only be achieved through the overthrow of the Islamic Republic of Iran.