Experts denounce fictitious names for Persian Gulf

Originally at: http://www.iranmania.com/News/ArticleView/Default.asp?NewsCode=28076&NewsKind=Current%20Affairs

LONDON, Dec 26 (IranMania) - A group of Iranologists strongly condemned deliberate attempts to falsify historic facts by changing the name of the Persian Gulf.

Research should be given high priority so that moves to change history by calling the Persian Gulf by other fictitious names will be halted, president of the Iranology Foundation, Hassan Habibi, said in a conference of world Iranologists, the second of its kind held in the country, IRNA reported.

America's National Geographic Society, in the eighth edition of its Atlas, used the fake name `Arabian Gulf' to refer to the waters off the southern coast of Iran. Habibi condemned the move as "illegal and unacceptable." The society is the publisher of the prestigious National Geographic magazine.

The society's use of dubious names for the Iranian islands of Greater and Lesser Tumbs and Abu Mussa are also irresponsible and condemnable, the former president of the Islamic Republic declared.

In the conference, attended by more than 100 Iranologists, Majlis Speaker Gholamali Haddad-Adel pointed to Iran's undeniable prestige in history if one were to "study Iran's place in history free from bias and pre-judgment.""Today, the geographical mass that is Iran occupies a superior location and is at the crossroads between East and West. Iran is the meeting place of human cultures and civilizations."

Meanwhile, Internet users were among the first and major opponents of distortion of the name of the Persian Gulf by National Geographic, analysts said.

Both Iranian and non-Iranian Internet users who are well-aware of the history of the Persian Gulf region have been using a variety of ways to express their anger against misnomer of the Persian Gulf.

The "PERSIANBLOG" was the first Internet site that reacted to the National Geographic move by placing its protest on a site called "PETITION". After five weeks the petition was at the top of the list of the Internet protests.

Over 85,000 users have so far singed the petition, which is at WWW.PERSIANBLOG.COM/PERSIANGULF, and called on National Geographic to apologize to the Iranians and make a correction.