Ahwaz TV: Regime panicked into propaganda response

Fearing the growth of grassroots Ahwazi media activism, the Iranian regime has launched its own Ahwaz satellite television channel.

Launched in the presence of Ayatollah Jazayeri and provincial governor Jafar Hejazi, the channel has been devised to counter the influence of exiled Ahwazi groups. Jazayeri  said: “the launch of this television channel was urgently required to combat Wahhabi plots in Khuzestan.” The Iranian regime routinely denounces Ahwazi activism as Sunni fundamentalism, even though religious sectarianism plays little part in the Ahwazi resistance movement.

Ahwazi activists believe the channel launch demonstrates the seriousness of the Ahwazi Arab challenge to the regime, which has seen the movement attack pipelines and organise some of the largest mass opposition demonstrations in the country. The channel launch will reaffirm Ahwazi Arab national identity while providing a stark contrast between the regime’s propaganda on ethnic harmony and the reality of unemployment, poor education, low life expectancy, homelessness and environmental destruction that the indigenous population has to endure on a daily basis.

http://www.ahwaziarabs.info/2013/08/ahwaz-tv-regime-panicked-into.html