Use of Azeri banned in Iran's Azeri-language newspaper

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Subject: Use of Azeri banned in Iran's Azeri-language newspaper

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Use of Azeri banned in Iran's Azeri-language newspaper


Use of Azeri banned in Iran's Azeri-language newspaper
BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Dec 7, 2001

The Azerbaijani newspaper Ayna says that the Iranian Ministry of
Culture and Islamic Guidance has banned the use of the Azerbaijani
language in the provincial newspaper Shams-e Tabriz published in
Iran's Azeri-populated city of Tabriz. Protesting about this, the
editor-in-chief of Shams-e Tabriz says that the ministry's action runs
counter to Article 15 of Iran's Constitution and that there is no need
to obtain special permission for using local languages. The following
is the text of Sadraddin report by Azerbaijani newspaper Ayna on 7
December entitled "The Turkic language seems to be frightening the
regime"

Iranian mullahs have banned Turkic-language articles in Shams-e Tabriz
newspaper

The publication of articles in Turkic [Azeri] in Shams-e Tabriz
[Tabriz Sun] newspaper has been banned by the local office of the
Ministry of [Culture] and Islamic Guidance. In this connection, Ali
Hamid Imani, editor-in-chief, published an article in the 118th
edition of Shams-e Tabriz.

Incidentally, we expected this. Because, in line with growing protests
in the sphere of basic human rights in southern Azerbaijan and the
rest of Iran, the ruling regime is increasing its pressure on
newspapers. As for newspapers published in southern Azerbaijan, there
was a small number of articles in Azerbaijani Turkic in these
bilingual local newspapers mainly about poems and bayaties [folks
poetry]. The authors of these articles, who had not been educated in
their native language, often failed to observe the rules of our
literary language. But articles of the sort are of great importance
against the background of the situation of the Turkic language in the
Iranian press. It is strange that Iranian officials often took
advantage of this situation. When representatives of the regime were
asked why there was no Turkic press in southern Azerbaijan, they
always pointed to these articles and newspapers as an example and
found a way out of the situation.

Shams-e Tabriz was not a nationalist newspaper. For example, this
newspaper has published a great number of absurd articles about our
country. This manifested itself even more this summer, when our air
space and maritime border were violated by Iranian planes and ships.

In his letter to the 120th edition of Shams-e Tabriz entitled "There
is no need for permission to use local languages", Dr Huseyn Sadeq
says that the decision to ban the use of Turkic in the newspaper was
wrong. He writes: "The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran
clearly indicates that there is no need for permission to use local
languages in schools, universities and mass media. Even banning people
from writing in Turkic is also against the law and runs counter to
Article 15 of the Constitution. On the basis of this article, daily
and weekly newspapers in local languages and dialects are being
published in Neyshapur, Kerman, Yazd, Shiraz and Ahvaz. Even
Jomhuri-ye Eslami newspaper published in Tehran sometimes puts out
articles in local languages and in other Turkic languages.

"At the same time, there is a number of newspapers that have obtained
permission for putting out articles in local languages. For example, I
obtained permission for publishing a weekly entitled Sahand in
Azerbaijani Turkic 11 years ago. At the same time, I also took
advantage of a privilege of the sort given to Ettela'at newspaper
published in Tehran. I did not use Persian in these cases. I should
point out that there is no need for newspapers published in the
Persian alphabet to obtain additional permission. Even under the cruel
regime of the Shah, many works were published in Turkic, including
`Hello Grandpa Heydar' by Shahriyar and `The word of my saz' [a
musical instrument] by Sahand, which declared war on the Shah's
regime.

"Since the revolution, more than 5,000 books have been published in
Azerbaijani Turkic. I regret that the Tabriz office of the Ministry of
[Culture] and Islamic Guidance is turning a blind eye to this. We want
the ministry to respect Article 15 of the Constitution and create
conditions for our newspapers to publish articles in Turkic in some of
their pages."

The editor-in-chief of the newspaper touched on this subject in his
article entitled "Azerbaijan in the grips of reason and love". A
reader called R.A.M. from Tabriz writes in this connection: "I felt
from your article that some people are trying to leave you alone on
this regard. You have lost hope. But do not worry. Hundreds of people
in this city see eye-to-eye with you. These people are not
bootlickers. They are fighters. They are individually engaged in
scientific, public, historical, literary and cultural spheres in every
corner of the city. Be sure that you are not alone in this respect.
Hundreds of people in this city will lay their head on the block for
our land and nation."

Such pressure on southern Azerbaijani newspapers, which are facing a
harsh financial plight, creates additional problems. The regime has
lately published articles in southern Azerbaijani newspapers with pen
names, distorting our history, literature and culture. In addition, it
bans the publication of half-baked articles in Turkic. The Turkic
language seems to be frightening the regime.

Source: Ayna, Baku in Azeri 7 Dec 01 p 8

/BBC Monitoring/ � BBC.

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