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The South Azerbaijan Freedom Party(GAQP)

The party fights for the freedom, democracy and independency in the Azerbaijani territory in Iran.

The Emblem of GAQP

The South Azerbaijan Freedom Party refers to as GAQP (Güney Azərbaycan Qurtuluş partiyası in Turkish, حزب رهایی آزربایجان جنوبی in Farsi) is the first political party that has been founded since 1990 in the city of Tabriz, the capital city of the East-Azerbaijan province in the North West in Iran. The main goal of the party is the freedom ,independency and democracy of the Azerbaijani territory that is located inside Iran. The party's base of support includes people in rural places, cities suffer from Iranian regime economically, culturally, linguistically and those who are the serious target of systematic and institutional racism.

Azerbaijan has been splited in to two parts, namely North Azerbaijan known as The Republic of Azerbaijn and South Azerbaijan where is located inside Iran. The splited Azerbaijan is the product of the Treaty of Gulistan and the Treaty of Turkmenchay on 24 October 1813 and 10 February 1828 respectively that were signed between Qajar Dynasty and Russian Empire after a long period of war, known as Azerbaijan-Russia war in the history. It has created the divided nation in both sides of Araz river.

South Azerbaijan is composed of the provinces of West Azerbaijan, East Azerbaijan, Ardabil, Zanjan, Hamadan, Qazvin, Alborz, Qom, Tehran, Markazi and Gilan. The estimated population is over 30 million and they speak Turkish with Azerbaijani dialect. There are some other minorities in the region as well that some of them have migrated to the region in the past decades.

The party was founded by the university teachers, students, workers and common people who have fought for freedom, democracy, human rights, equal rights, cultural rights, women rights, mother language and justice against the dictator regime of Islamic Republic of Iran.The party is considered as an illegal group in Iran and that is why the party members inside the territory keep their identity anonymous for security reasons as well as the students who study abroad and travel freely. The party continues its activities in Europe and it has representatives in different countries. The party is ruled by a central board that is represented by a spokesperson. The decisions are made by all the members of the central board and the representatives and passed by the votes of the majority.

Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Islamic Republic of Iran Dr. Ahmed Shaheed, interview