Ahwazi Arabs protest Iran’s oil exploitation and human rights abuses outside the London offices of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) on July 3, 2016. Image from Peter Tatchell Foundation, used with permission Stories of unlawful, unjust arrests and even deaths in prison have been making headlines on the heels of Iran's winter protest movement. Demonstrators initially railed against the country's stalled economy and the massive price hikes on the cost of basic food items, but the movement soon snowballed into outspoken criticism of Iran's leadership. The recent, mysterious death of Dr. Kavvous Seyed Emami, a non-political academic and environmental activist, caused much uproar. While such tragedies are shocking to many, similar incidents have been occurring amongst Iran's Ahwazi Arab population, with much less attention, for years. Over 5 million Ahwazis exist in the provinces of Khuzestan, Bushehr, Hormozgan and Qeshm Island, a region they call “Ahwaz”. Despite living in the area which holds over 95% of Iran's oil and gas resources, Ahwazi Arabs live under discrimination and poverty. Viewed as inferior because of their ethnicity, most exist below the poverty line, with limited or no access to employment, education, healthcare, or basic utilities. The community has suffered in silence, persecuted by Iran for almost a century. Compounding this problem is the media blackout surrounding events in Ahwaz. Ethnic cleansing is routine, with hundreds of thousands forced from their homes without warning or compensation. Several people involved in peaceful human rights work for Iran's Ahwazis have been killed recently, including Sayed Habib Rahmani Moussawi and Mahdi Haradani, two imprisoned Ahwazi Arab dissidents who died at the hands of Iran's intelligence services. Now, according to statements from the families, officials are refusing to hand over the young men’s bodies or even to tell them where they are buried. Their family members are also being threatened with imprisonment if they hold traditional funeral rites for their loved ones, who are suspected to have died from the torture that was meted out to them during their detainment. Moussawi was a political, cultural and human rights activist, popular and well-respected in his Al-Thawra neighborhood of the regional capital, Ahwaz, because of his tireless campaign for the freedom of the Ahwazi people. He promoted the Arabic language and educated the youth about the region’s rich Arab heritage. Moussawi had previously been arrested — in 2005 and 2007 — on account of his activism. Haradani, who hailed from the city’s Mandali neighborhood and did similar work, disappeared last October. Their peaceful activism roused the ire of the authorities, which forbid Arabic-language education, despite it being the native language of the Ahwaz region’s indigenous Arab peoples. Traditional Arab dress is also banned. The men were both seized by agents of the Revolutionary Guard in 2017. For months, they were prevented from contacting their families. Authorities were vague about the charges laid against them, withheld information about their whereabouts, and only disclosed that the men had been executed when they summoned the activists’ families to Ahwaz for a February 14, 2018 meeting. In a heartbreaking phone call, the widow of Sayed Rahmani Moussawi told Global Voices that the torment began when her husband was abducted by regime forces in mid-June 2017, during the observance of Ramadan. His family received no notice that he had been arrested, but they felt sure that Rahmani — the father of three young children — was being targeted because of his advocacy for Ahwazi rights. Mrs. Moussawi said that not knowing whether her husband was alive or dead was “agony”: We searched for him at all the relevant government agencies, but we were unable to get any information. On Thursday, we were summoned by the regime intelligence services, and they informed us that he had been executed. Despite knowing that she and her children might be targeted in retaliation, she lamented the Iranian authorities’ cruel persecution of her husband in the years before his death: My husband was innocent — all he did was to raise awareness of the regime’s policies aimed at eradicating Ahwazi people from our homeland by every means, including wiping out our language. As she spoke, she regularly stopped to regain her composure as her grief, still fresh, overwhelmed her: He organized various Arab celebrations in our home to teach people about the importance of protecting our Arabic language and identity.