Status verified as of 22 September 2026. Political positions change; this explainer describes the documented position on that date.
Current position
No Azerbaijani autonomous or federal entity exists within Iran. GAMOH's founder has lived in exile in the United States since 2002, and this bundle does not document organized Southern Azerbaijani political activity inside Iran more recent than the 2006 protests.[1]
Sources for this page
Each number marks a specific claim. Notes give the source, its locator and how it relates to the claim.
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1.
Claim: Mahmudali Chehregani founded the Southern Azerbaijan National Awakening Movement (known by its Azerbaijani-language acronym GAMOH), a political organization advocating for the rights and self-determination of Iran's ethnic Azerbaijani population, estimated by some sources at between 12 and 18.5 million people; Chehregani was arrested in December 1999, preventing a further parliamentary candidacy, imprisoned for six months in 2000 (during which Amnesty International recognized him as a "prisoner of conscience"), and has lived in exile in the United States since 2002.
- Mahmudali Chehregani (Wikipedia) link, GAMOH founding and imprisonment sections. Source record
Printed from https://independenceatlas.com/movements/southern-azerbaijani/status · last substantive update 24 September 2026.