Yunesi: We Are Under Pressure From Both Sides

The special assistant to president Hassan Rouhani in ethnic and religious minority affairs Ali Yunesi said that some refrain from mentioning religious minorities or ethnic groups while there are those who insist on peripheral and non-priority issues such as the “mother tongue and make the work of this administration more difficult.”

He posted these words on his Facebook page as the official Iranian news agency, IRNA, presented it on Tuesday, July 8, 2014, as a special accomplishment of the presidential assistant on minorities. The story also presented the obstacles of the special assistant in performing his duties and listed the demands of ethnic and religious minority groups in Iran.

Yunesi was appointed as the special assistant for minority affairs two months after Rouhani’s administration came to office last year. This is the first such post in the Islamic Republic.

Now with the passage of about eight months in the job, Yunesi said he is under pressure from both sides and added, “Some do not even use the words the rights of religious and ethnic minorities.”

Yunesi, who was the minister of intelligence in former president Khatami’s administration, did not identify the groups or individuals but some of his remarks, positions and actions such as a visit to the Jewish temple in Shiraz have been strongly criticized by hardline Principlists, prompting some of them to even compare him to shunned Esfandiar Mashai in Ahmadinejad’s administration.

This is not the first time Yunesi has pointed the finger of blame on others. About five months ago he said that some radical individuals and groups had a securitized view of minorities who he said may have infiltrated the security agencies of the state.

His latest comment does not seem to be limited to those he had earlier said were “few but loud.” According to Yunesi, there are people on the other side too who “are continuously elevating their expectations and who are promoting peripheral topics as the key issues, such as the mother tongue, which is a demand but not one for the population.”

This is also not the first time that Yunesi relegates the issue of the mother tongue of minorities to secondary importance. Earlier this year during a discussion on article 15 of Iran’s constitution, which specifies that Persian is the official language of the people while providing that the “use of tribal or local dialects is allowed” in the media and schools, he had said that local languages were not the issues of the Kurds, Azerbaijanis or the Baluchis, and that this was aired by political groups. He said this had to be taken away as a pretext for these groups.

Yunesi’s latest remarks on the issue of local languages comes after a group of Kurdish activists submitted a petition with ten thousand signatures by Kurds calling for the implementation of the government’s pledges in connection with “teaching the mother tongue.”

Candidate Hassan Rouhani received significant votes in provinces that have been calling for attention to their native languages such as the provinces of Baluchistan and Kurdistan, after he used slogans during his presidential campaign in support of minority rights. He has issued a ten-point statement on minority rights, which was followed by Yunesi’s appointment apparently to pursue the principles in the statement. Yunesi in turn has categorized the problems facing the minorities and has said that economic issues and those related to participation at the executive levels required long-term solutions.

In the most recent example of the government’s outreach to the minorities, as recent developments unfolded in Iraq, where some tribal groups joined opposition groups, Rouhani called on all factions, minorities and religious sects to rally together against the dangers they all faced.