What is the Persian Gulf Organization?

Established in 1998, the Persian Gulf Organization (PGO) is a group of
volunteers dedicated to the defense and preservation of the historic name of
the Persian Gulf. In recent years, this ancient name, testifying to the
legacy of Iran (with over 2,500 years of documented history), has come under
attack. Those most eager to affect a name change are ultra-nationalist Arab
chauvinists who seek to capitalize on Iran's perceived weakness. These
historical revisionists have taken their ethnic pride to outrageous extremes
by suggesting that the Persian Gulf should be called the "Arabian Gulf" - a
name with no credibility that reveals the racism and anti-Iranian sentiments
of these Arabs.

Unfortunately, there are those opportunists outside the Arab world,
primarily in Britain and other Western European nations, who have given
credence to these false claims and reprehensible attempts at historical
distortion by referring to the Persian Gulf as merely, "the Gulf." (The BBC
and British media are especially culpable). By doing so, they apparently
hope to curry favor with the Arabs and to win more lucrative oil concessions
for their oil industries and to attract further Arab investment in other
sectors of their depressed economies.

We of the Persian Gulf Organization have viewed these developments with
alarm, especially as this abuse continues to gain momentum. In the absence
of decisive action by the Iranian government, it is up to us to defend the
heritage of Iran.

We realize that our mission is more than the preservation of a name. We are
dedicated to the defense of the truth and to insure that Iran's
contributions to world civilization are not deprecated.

We emphatically state that our position has been documented for thousands of
years in Western, Iranian, and Arab sources. Even religious sources support
this - for example, in the Hadith, the Persian Gulf is called the Persian
Sea (bahr al-fars).

The Persian Gulf Organization must continue to be vigilant in its defense of
Iran's legacy. It is morally wrong to distort and minimize historical fact
and we are committed to defending the truth. We urge all Iranians and
non-Iranians to join us in this noble undertaking. Please visit
www.persiangulfonline.org for further information. Apathy and inaction will
result in further damage and loss of Iranian heritage, for which we will
have only ourselves to blame.

The PGO is a non-partisan and non-religious organization, which has no ties
to any government or political party. It does not support any political
individual or ideology.