Urgent care required

Eliminate the word “Persia” from the category of your bookstores.

The most racist categorizing method against ethnic groups of Iran in the biggest

bookstore of Portland Oregon USA.

I could'nt believe this racist action, since I visited the biggest bookstore of the Portland Oregon. All different types of books in a huge variety can be found in this bookstore.

They are categorizing the books according to names of countries. For example all books related to Iraq are found in “Iraq” section and it is the same in all other categories. There are categories like Turkey, Iraq, Greece, Georgia... .the interesting matter is all the books related to Iran is exhibited in “ Iran/Persia” section. The question is why the other sections are categorized only by the countries name and it is not the same in Iran's case? For example why there is no sections like “ Iraq/Arab” or “Turkey/Turk” and instead of those sections name are “turkey” or “Iraq” ,but there is interesting category like “Iran/Persia”. How about the other ethnic groups which are more than %75 of population of Iran? How can they explain this?

I discussed this issue with some supervisors of the bookstore, I was shocked by their responds. They justified this racist action with some interesting reasons that I could'nt believe what I had just heard from them. One of the supervisors told me “ we put this name (Iran/Persia) because of the long history of Persian empires in Iran”. This were not their words, these are the words which are coming from all those pan-Iranists who were advertising their ideas before the visitors like me in that bookstore and other locations too. After I explained some history of Iran and all other ethnic groups who are living in political geography of Iran there were some signs of confusion in their face. They asked me too many questions about history of Iran and current situation of ethnic groups in Iran too. I asked them to take the word “Persia” out of that category.

We are here to show every one the truth and to prove that there are other ethnic groups living in Iran that do not even have the right to read and write in their mother language.

By signing this petition you are defending your identity and your rights.

By signing this petition we will eliminate the word “Persia” from the category of Powell's book stores and all other location related to this bookstore.

By Aydin Salimi