Dear Mr. Ensor,
This letter is written to express Azerbaijani civil right activists’ concernsabout boycotting the Azerbaijani Turks ethnic groups’ news in Iran by thePersian division of VOA.
In April 2013 five Azerbaijanicivil rights activists, Yeni Gamaoh party central council, were sentenced for45 years imprisonment, 9 years each. They focused their efforts on Turkminority human rights in Iran which is violated by Iranian government.
In June 2013, activists mentionedabove started hunger strike protesting unfair trial and mistreatment in Tabrizprison. In response, Iranian authorities exiled them from Tabriz prisonto Rajaee Shahr prison. They conditionally ended hunger strike after 28days following civil right society request. Several human rightsorganizations such as, Human Right Watch and Frontline published a declarationcondemning the mentioned violation and required Iranian authorities toimmediate action to release them. Although thirteen human rightorganizations condemned this violation and almost two thousand civil rightsactivists signed a petition for their freedom, the Persian division of Voice ofAmerica ignored this news. Repeated requests for covering the mentioned newswere rejected by VOA Persian, while the news attracted the Azerbaijani publicattention in Iran.
VOA Persian inattention to thisnews is an example among dozens of news related to non-Persian population inIran which is ignored by VOA Persian.
Since people do not trust the newspublished by Islamic republic of Iran, the foreign media penetration andinfluence are high in Iran. This is a true fact about VOA accordingly.Therefore VOA plays an effective role in forming public view towards issuesrelated to Iran.
Considering all facts mentioned above, ignoring the news whichis important for some of your viewers will damage the people’s trust on yourmedia in the long time. This intentional negligence to the subjects related tolarge Azerbaijani population in Iran will ruin VOA dependability and decreasethe number of your audiences in Azerbaijan considerably. This biased point ofview even against Azerbaijani political prisoners is clearly observed in theentire program produced by VOA Persian.
We would like to draw yourattention to the fact that ignoring the subjects related to minorities’ effortsand demands for equal rights will create social distance among different ethnicand lingual groups in Iran. This in turn will hinder the collaborative effortsto build a democratic society and conduct a constructive dialogue.
Those of your audience, who do notfollow the Azerbaijani news from other media, might have a wrong perceptionabout the facts and real political situations of Iran. In addition, they willhave a misconception about the demands of all groups in Iranian society. Thisignorance will cause people become indifferent to Azerbaijanis’ needs andrequests; while this is against the VOA objective statement and manifesto.
We would like to demand you tocover Azerbaijanis’ news alongside world and neighbor countries news. We desireVOA Persian to participate in preventing human rights abuse againstAzerbaijanis’ political prisoners via covering the news related to them. Webelieve the principle of fairness and justice in VOA manifesto requires the VOAmanagement board and executives to give the chance for Azerbaijani activistsand political specialists to indicate their views directly instead of invitingsomeone else who are not really involved in Azerbaijani problems and issues todiscuss about the current topics of Azerbaijan.
Yours Sincerely,
Signatures:
1- Dr. AlirezaAbdollahi (Turkey)
2- Dr. AsadTagizade ( Norway)
3- Dr. Hamdullah Soleymani
4- Dr. Hasan Gulmuhammad ( USA)
5- Dr. HoseinYahyai (Sweden)
6- Dr. HusenXurushi (USA)
7- Dr. İbrahimPakizeh (Turkey)
8- Dr. Ishiq Sonmaz (Turkolog and Etnolog)
9- Dr. KetayunSarnesar (USA)
10- Dr. Shakour Babazadeh (Sweden)
11- Dr. Simin Sabri (Norway)
12- Dr. Talas Avshar (Canada)
13- Dr. Veli Bashiry (North Cyprus)
14- Mr. Araz muğanli
15- Mr. Adel Motallebi.
16- Mr. Ahmad Amini (Norway)
17- Mr. Ahmad Mahdian
18- Mr. Ahmad Mahdian
19- Mr. Akbar Ahmadi ( Norway)
20- Mr. Ali Qulami (USA)
21- Mr. Ali Suleymani (USA)
22- Mr. Alireza Ardabili (Sweden)
23- Mr. Alireza Nazmi Afshar (USA)
24- Mr. Amir Makouei (Norway)
25- Mr. Araz Atapour (Turkey)
26- Mr. Araz Nesimi (switzerland)
27- Mr. Aslan Soltani Nazarlou (Sweed)
28- Mr. Ata Hamedi (Canada)
29- Mr. Avid Meyinli
30- Mr. Ayat Mahman (Norway)
31- Mr. Aydin Qaraxanli (Finland)
32- Mr. Aydin Salimi (USA)
33- Mr. Babak Bakhtavar (England)
34- Mr. Babak Chalabiyani (USA)
35- Mr. Babak Shahed (Turkey)
36- Mr. Behnam Yousefi Sadat
37- Mr. Behzad Xanelilu
38- Mr. Boyuk Rasuloghlu (Norway)
39- Mr. Davud Turan (USA)
40- Mr. Duman Radmehr (Human Rights activist)
41- Mr. Ebad Rafati Gargari
42- Mr. Elchin Hatami (Human Rights activist)
43- Mr. Elnur Marandli (Netherlands)
44- Mr. Ensafali Hedayat (USA)
45- Mr. Farzi Nasab ( Norway)
46- Mr. Gholamreza Zarei (Sweden)
47- Mr. Hadi Musavi (Turkey)
48- Mr. Hadi Qarachay ( Norway)
49- Mr. Hasan Sulduzlu (USA)
50- Mr. Hosein Tabrizli (Sweden)
51- Mr. Isa Turkoglu (England)
52- Mr. İsmail Jamili (USA)
53- Mr. Javad Derakhti (sweden)
54- Mr. Javid Nazmi
55- Mr. M. Soleymani Namin
56- Mr. Mahdi Fazli (Sweden)
57- Mr. Mehdi Jomehri
58- Mr. Mohammad Azizi (Norway)
59- Mr. Mohammad Reza Torabi
60- Mr. Mohammadreza Tabrizli (Norway)
61- Mr. Mohmoud Bilgin (Sweden)
62- Mr. Naser Mergati
63- Mr. Naser Rezayi
64- Mr. Navid Soltani (Turkey)
65- Mr. Okhtay Valizadeh (Turkey)
66- Mr. Parviz Ahmadzadeh (Azerbaijan)
67- Mr. Rahmat Najafpour (Norway)
68- Mr. Ramin Jabbarli (Turkey)
69- Mr. Reza Bargoshadi
70- Mr. Reza khalili
71- Mr. Reza Talebi (Turkey)
72- Mr. Rufat Muradli (Azerbaijan)
73- Mr. Sahain Helali khyavi ( Norway)
74- Mr. Said Azizi (Sweden)
75- Mr. Said Eslami
76- Mr. Said Moradi Naqade (Turkey)
77- Mr. Said Saed (Germany)
78- Mr. Salamat dashti (Sweden)
79- Mr. Sardar Asadi ( Norway)
80- Mr. Sirus Fekri
81- Mr. Tahir Mahami (USA)
82- Mr. Toghrul Atabay (Turkey)
83- Mr. Umid Niayesh
84- Mr. Umud Evren (Netherlands)
85- Mr. UmudShukri (Turkey)
86- Mr. Vahid Hayri (Turkey)
87- Mr. Vəhid Bahaduri (Turkey)
88- Mr. Vida Doshabchi (USA)
89- Mr. Younes Shameli (Journalist)
90- Mr-Muxtar şamszadeh (Netherlands)
91- Mrs. Azra Azari (Sweden- Women Rights activist)
92- Mrs. Faride saray ( USA)
93- Mrs. Gunesh Zamanzade (Turkey)
94- Mrs. IliyaSuleymani (USA)
95- Mrs. Mahni Turanli (Norway)
96- Mrs. Mahsa Mehdili Barzin (Turkey)
97- Mrs. Seva Ahmadova (USA)
98- Ms. Gisou Haghi (Norway)
99- Ms. Parvin Araz
100- Ms. SevilSoleymani (USA)
101- Ms. SharifehJafari (Turkey)
102- Ms. ShirinKanani
103- Ms. Torkman Tamaddoni Gamichi (USA)
104- Prof. Dr. AhmadOmid Yazdani (Germany)
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