Humiliation of Azerbaijani Turks - known who will mostly suffer from it - COMMENT

Baku. 10 November. REPORT.AZ/ Protests and marches against humiliation of Azerbaijani Turks were held in Tehran, Tabriz, Ardabil, Urmiya, Zanjan, Sulvuz (Nagada), Meshkinshehre (Hiyav) and other cities held rallies and marches.

These protests were held under the slogan "Zəncanlılar qan verər - türk dilinə can verər!" ("Zanjanese die for Turkish language!"), "Haray, haray, mən türkəm!" ("Hey, hey, I am a Turk"), "Azərbaycan var olsun, istəməyən kor olsun!" ("Long live Azerbaijan"), "Ölüm olsun faşistə!" ("Death to the fascists").

The police and civilian officials intervened in protest.

What happened in reality? On Friday, November 6, the Fitilə program, in part "Hotel Fitilə", broadcast on the 2nd channel of the Islamic Republic of Iran had humiliated the Azerbaijani Turks (Azerbaijanis). In this program a father and his son (Azerbaijanis)complain to the owner of the hotel for the presence of bad odor. Then it turns out that his son had brushed his teeth with a toilet brush instead of a toothbrush and a bad smell was coming from them. Despite the fact that the "comedy" was in Persian, some episodes were broadcast in the Azerbaijani language. The protests took place for this reason.

After campaigns, the chairman of the TV and Radio Company of Iran Mohammad Sarafraz apologized for making a "mistake". He noted that some staff who had prepared a number of programs for the "second channel", were reprimanded (no names identified), and some were fired.

The producer of the program Alirza Agay made a statement and asked for forgiveness. In his statement, he tried to justify himself.

Iranian media have presented it differently: "On Friday, November 6, in the program designed for children and teenagers "Fitilə", which is broadcast on the second channel, due to ignorance and irresponsibility, the dialogue was voiced in the Azerbaijani language, what causing concern among Iranian Azeris."

Sometimes this program is in Turkish language. Therefore it is impossible to claim that these people were Azerbaijanis.

Undoubtedly, then other Iranian officials will start criticizing victims of this "comedy", even pointing out the close relation to the Turks (Azerbaijanis, Azerbaijani Turks). In this way they will try to secure themselves."

This is not the first time this year the Iranian TV channels broadcast such programs.

The first large-scale and mass action of Azerbaijanis was held on May 22, 2006. On May 12, at the children's page of the newspapers published in Tehran, "Iran" a cartoon insulting the Azerbaijani language and Azerbaijanis was published. In this cartoon, the Persian child wants to talk with a cockroach in Persian, but a cockroach answers him in Azeri, "What do you mean?".

The subtitle text of caricatures was as follows: "How to prevent a cockroach from turning us into a cockroach too." The first part of this text: "Many people think that you should not fight at the first meeting, because it's not interesting. Then we have to sit down and talk to a cockroach. But the problem is that a cockroach does not understand normal speech. The cockroach language is complex so 80 % of them prefer to speak in other languages ".

Protests against this material have been held in East Azerbaijan, West Azerbaijan, Ardebil, Zanjan, Tehran and other provinces. While more than 20 protesters were killed by the police and other security agencies. Hundreds of protesters were arrested.

After these events official and unofficial persons headed by the supreme leader of Iran, Seyyed Ali Khamenei (claims he is also Azeri, Azeri Turk) criticized it in newspapers and pointed to the indispensable role of Azerbaijanis in Iran's history.