LEBANON SYRIA ISRAEL/OT/ Palestinian Authority EGYPT JORDAN IRAQ KUWAIT IRAN Middle SAUDI ARABIA BAHRAIN QATAR U.A.E . East Eric Witte OMAN YEMEN ARABIAN SEA Violence against minority groups in Iraq continued could exacerbate a conflict in which minorities the borders with northern Iraq and south-west fuelled resentment, as has discrimination on cultural- at catastrophic levels in 2007, and the mounting have suffered the most. Turkey; another sizeable community of Kurds lives linguistic grounds. Some Arabs are Sunni and not impact has been felt region-wide. Sectarian and By Middle Eastern standards, Iran is relatively in the north-east, along the border with allowed to practise their faith publicly, or construct a ethnic war has cost hundreds of thousands of lives, rich in fresh water. However, a severe drought in its Turkmenistan. The Iranian regime has watched with single Sunni mosque. In January and February 2007 driven ancient minority communities to the edge of south-east over the past few years has alarm as Kurds have consolidated their autonomy the Iranian government executed eight Ahwazi Arabs destruction, and sparked an exodus from Iraq of disproportionately affected the ethnic Baluchi within Iraq, and fears the establishment of a Kurdish for alleged participation in 2005 sabotage of oil epic proportions. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis minority concentrated in that region and provided state that would make claims on Iranian territory. infrastructure in Khuzestan by the intentionally have sought refuge in Middle Eastern countries, and fodder for accusations of government neglect. With An Iranian Kurdish militant group, the Party for a excruciating method of slow strangulation. Three have placed a particularly heavy burden on Jordan global warming, Baluchis will face new Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK), which is affiliated UN rapporteurs deemed the one-day trial deeply and Syria. The war in Iraq has also been one of the environmental pressure to add to their discontent. with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) of Turkey, flawed. The accused had not been allowed access to main reasons for a deterioration in the relationship operates in Iran from bases in the rugged mountains their lawyers and, when the Ahwazi lawyers between the US and Iran. Mounting tension has Country by country of Iraqi Kurdistan. Tehran accuses the US and Israel complained, they were arrested. In September the worked to the detriment of ethnic and sectarian Iran of supporting PJAK, and over the course of 2007 government conducted three more such executions, minorities there, whom the government accuses of Ethnic and religious minorities make up nearly half of shelled northern Iraq indiscriminately in response. sparking public protests on which police opened fire. receiving Western assistance. Polarization between the Iranian population. Discontent among various The regime has extended accusations of complicity In November 2007, eight additional executions the Arab world and the West has also contributed to minority groups has risen sharply over the past two with foreign enemies to other Kurds protesting, or appeared imminent, but an international advocacy Lebanon’s political crisis, in which alleged Syrian- years. Since Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad even talking about Kurdish issues. In February campaign subsequently succeeded in removing two backed assassinations of minority politicians have came to power in August 2005, the government has 2007, Amnesty International reported that police Ahwazi men from death row. brought the country back to the brink of war. more forcefully promoted the country’s majority allegedly killed three Kurds and injured dozens more Azeris, who are Turkic-speaking Shias, make up Meanwhile, efforts resumed to forge a peace Persian and Shia Muslim identity. In contravention of during a demonstration for Kurdish rights in the nearly one-quarter of the population and are between Israel and the long-marginalized formal guarantees in the Iranian Constitution and town of Mahabad. Reporters without Borders concentrated in north-western Iran, along the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza, now international commitments, in 2007 the government announced in July that two Kurdish journalists had borders with Azerbaijan and Armenia. Of all of controlled by rival factions Fatah and Hamas, continued a crackdown on ethnic and religious been sentenced to death in the town of Marivan. Iran’s ethnic minorities, Azeris receive perhaps the respectively. minorities through methods including police Both of the journalists had written on Kurdish greatest acceptance among Persian Iraqis; indeed, There is broad scientific consensus that human- repression, discrimination in education, and state issues for a magazine banned in August 2005, and Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, is ethnic induced climate change is affecting the Middle East, media campaigns. There was significant overlap the prosecution cited interviews one of them Azeri. Nevertheless, Azeris continue to face resulting in hotter summers, reduced rainfall and between minority rights abuses on ethnic and religious conducted with Voice of America as evidence of discrimination and are denied education in their rising sea levels. By 2050 the amount of available grounds in Iran, as nearly all ethnic Baluchis and ‘activities subverting national security’ and ‘spying’. mother tongue. In February 2007 Iranian security fresh water per capita is expected to drop by half. In Turkomans, most Kurds, and some Arabs practise Ethnic Baluchis, who are mostly Sunni Muslims, forces arrested dozens of Azeris peacefully protesting a region where conflicts have been sparked and Sunni Islam disfavoured by the regime. live on both sides of the Iranian–Pakistani border for Azeri-language education in towns across the exacerbated by an already acute shortage of fresh Rising tension among Western governments over and comprise around 2 per cent of the Iranian north-west. According to Amnesty International, water, climate change presents a newly recognized Iran’s nuclear programme and alleged backing for population. Baluchistan is the country’s poorest some of those detained allegedly were mistreated in threat to stability. In April 2007 the UN Security Shia militias fighting American-led forces in Iraq region and in recent years has been plagued by custody. In May, Azeris again demonstrating for Council convened at the behest of the UK Council have contributed to a poisoned environment for severe drought. Baluchis complained of government language rights were arrested in their hundreds; presidency to discuss the nexus between global some minority groups within Iran. The government discrimination and neglect following severe storms these protests were timed for the one-year warming and conflict. That same month a group of is wary of the large US and UK military presence in in June 2007 that cost over 20 lives, and claimed anniversary of a cartoon in a government newspaper prominent retired American generals released a neighbouring Iraq and Afghanistan, especially given that the government response was inadequate. Since that depicted a cockroach speaking Azeri. report on climate change as a national security issue, the steady flow of reports from Washington over the 2005 a Baluchi militia called Jondallah has claimed Iran’s largest religious minority, the Baha’i, also particularly noting its potential to exacerbate course of 2007 that senior members of the Bush credit for attacks on government targets; Tehran also faces some of the worst government abuse. The conflicts in the Middle East. administration are advocating military attacks on accuses it of attacks on civilian populations. estimated 300,000 Baha’i adherents are persecuted Although two major rivers, the Tigris and Iran. The government has accused disgruntled Amnesty International reported that by August for their belief that other prophets followed Euphrates, flow through it, Iraq already has minority groups including Arabs, Azeris, Baluchis 2007, in the wake of a February bomb attack on a Muhammad and, as followers of an unrecognized problems with access to fresh water due to dam and Kurds of accepting covert support from the US, bus full of Iranian army troops claimed by religion, are barred from public worship or contact projects in Syria and Turkey. The Food and the UK and Israel. Reports of such assistance are Jondallah, around 50 Baluchis had been executed in with co-believers in other countries. Baha’i rights Agriculture Organization reports that 74 per cent murky, and it remains unclear to what extent, if any, the intervening months. organizations reported an increase in government of the irrigation water in central and southern Iraq they are true, or merely serve Tehran as a pretext to The ongoing war in Iraq has stirred unrest in the harassment in 2007. This included police raids on suffers from salinity. With reduced rainfall discredit and clamp down on regime opponents neighbouring Iranian province of Khuzestan, which Baha’i homes and businesses in Tehran in February, expected due to climate change, on top of an from minority communities. in Arabic is called al-Ahwazi. High poverty rates criminal prosecution of group members for expansion of Turkey’s dam infrastructure, Iraq is Around 7 per cent of the Iranian population is among Ahwazi Arabs, despite their province’s promotion of an ‘un-Islamic’ organization, and facing a much drier future. This resource scarcity Kurdish and concentrated in the north-west, along production