It is only two months to the International Mother Language Day, while in Iran four people are to be charged tomorrow in a court of appeals only for participating in an International Mother Language Day ceremony.
Akbar Azad, Alireza Farshi, Behnam Sheykhi and Hamid Manafi are four civilian activists from South Azerbaijan in Iran which have been sentenced in the lower court to more than 10 years imprisonment as well as 2 years of exile, each one.
Iran is a multi-language, multi-cultural as well as multi-national country. But only Persian language is formal in this country. Despite of the Constitutional Law, other languages are imagined as a threat for national security of the country. Therefore, any attempt to use these languages on the education system or other semi-formal situations is supposed like an act of National Security Violation.
Since the low court has used the phrase “so called mother language” instead of “mother language” in its final judgment about the case, we can say that the court has avoided the acknowledgement of mother language concept as an existent phenomenon!
Then, it is very important to see what will be happened in the court of appeals in Tehran. Will the court accept the existence of the self-evident concept of Mother Tongue? Will the court accept that every man or woman has a right to speak, write, read and love his/her mother language? Will the court accept that it is not a criminal act to attend a ceremony for the celebration of the International Mother Language Day?
That is a case of Human Rights in Iran. Although no ethnicity or nationality makes majority of the population in Iran, Turks as a largest nationality in Iran form a relative majority in the country. But they are deprived of their mother language as well as their other rights. The regime in Iran has so far refused to respond the demands of this largest nationality. But, what about the future? Will it be able to deprive them from their rights forever?
By: Mohammad Rahmanifar
