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A Turkish civil rights activist from Azerbaijan, following this incident, went to the book fair and held a banner that read, "Haray Haray Mən Türkəm" ("Hear me loud, Hear me loud, I Am a Turk") to show support and protest. |
Reactions continue following the recent attack by "pan-Iranist" forces on the booth of Azer-Turk Publishing, a publisher from Iranian Azerbaijan, at the Tehran International Book Fair.
According to witnesses, including poet and publicist Said Muganli, the assailants stormed the booth shouting, "There are no Turks in Iran," and defaced the word "Turk" on the booth’s sign.
As reported by Gunaz TV and the Microphone News online portal, artists, writers, and Turkish activists have been visiting the Azer-Turk Publishing booth to show solidarity.
Several cultural activists demonstrating support have shared photos taken in front of the booth on social media.
According to human rights advocates, some Turkish activists, including Islam Maleki and Kazem Safabakhsh, who went to the fair to support the publisher, were detained by security forces for several hours.
Sadollah Dunyavi, director of Yayliq Publishing, another publisher active in Iranian Azerbaijan, expressed his sorrow over the incident, calling the violence against Turkish publishers "the act of a diseased mindset."
"There are thousands of publishers producing books in Persian. In contrast, the number of Turkish publishers doesn’t even reach 20. And among those, only a few genuinely care about publishing in Turkish. If a Turkish publisher is attacked at the fair, it means they don’t even want to see the few that exist," said Mr. Dunyavi, who operates in Ardabil.
Link to the original text in Turkish on the Azerbaijani section of Voice of America:
“İranda 20-dən az türk naşir var, onu da görmək istəmirlər”