Iran: The dangers of Iran's Holocaust denial

المصدر: 
The Muslim Chronicle
Tarek Fatah of The Muslim Chronicle writes, "Amir Hassanpour and Shahrzad Mojab are associate professors at the University of Toronto. Amir teaches Middle Eastern Civilizations while Shahrzad is director of the Women and Gender Studies Institute."
Both are active in the Toronto anti-war community and are an integral part of the broader left-wing movement in Canada.
In this piece for the Toronto Star, this husband-wife team of Iranian Canadian academics, denounces the anti-Semitism emanating from Teheran, but state that "The outcry against the anti-Semitism of the theocrats is motivated more by imperial interests than a principled anti-racism. At the same time, Israel uses the Holocaust to justify its policy of uprooting the Palestinian people."

To their compatriots in Iran, Amir Hassanpour and Shahrzad Mojab say, "this is an opportunity to broaden their resistance to the theocracy by opposing all expressions of anti-Semitism, and preventing the holding of another Holocaust denial circus."

The two academics rip apart the Teheran regime's oppressive treatment of minorities in Iran. They write: "The Islamic regime has time and again expressed its intent to eliminate Baha'ism, one of Iran's indigenous minority religions. It has executed hundreds of Baha'is, and has denied them full citizenship rights. Even after execution, Baha'is and other "non-clean" victims such as socialists and communists are buried in unidentified cemeteries or unmarked graves. The Islamic regime has not spared its majority population, either. Women have been subjected to a regime of gender apartheid, and "married adulterers" are brutally punished by stoning them to death. In 1988, Tehran launched a "politicide" project, massacring thousands of political prisoners who had already been sentenced to prison terms. Iran's non-Persian peoples, the Arabs, Baluches, Kurds and Turkmens, also suffer from repression. They are denied many rights including native tongue education. Even followers of Sunni Islam, which comprise about 20 per cent of the population, suffer from discrimination. They have not been allowed to build a Sunni mosque in Tehran."

Read and reflect.

Tarek Fatah