Azerbaijani protests of May 2006

Culture of origin: Azerbaijani · Historical

Holiday sources: Azerbaijani

On 12 May 2006 the state newspaper Iran printed, in its Friday supplement, a cartoon of a cockroach asking "What?" in Azerbaijani. Protests spread across the Azerbaijani north-west, to Tabriz, Urmia, Ardabil, Zanjan, Naqadeh and smaller towns; on 22 May thousands demonstrated outside the East Azerbaijan governor's office in Tabriz, and more than 50 were arrested there. Security forces opened fire: Amnesty International reported scores killed and hundreds, if not thousands, arrested, and Azerbaijani activists and Amnesty count at least 20 dead (the authorities admitted four dead and 330 arrests). In Naqadeh on 25 May, Hossein Fathipur, a 17-year-old high-school student, was shot in the chest by security forces outside the governor's office. The authorities suspended the paper and arrested the cartoonist, Mana Neyestani, and its editor-in-chief, Mehrdad Ghasemfar. On the anniversaries Azerbaijanis have taken to the streets, and the state has answered with arrests: more than 15 people in Tabriz in 2007 for calling for a demonstration, and hundreds around the 2008 anniversary, according to Amnesty.