The Heart for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) launched a special report on Tuesday saying that Iranian authorities are concentrating on, arresting and persecuting Sunni Muslim spiritual leaders for his or her opposition to the usage of state violence.
CHRI particulars the scenario going through Sunni spiritual leaders, who’re a non secular minority in Shia-majority Iran, within the nation’s Kurdish provinces and its Sistan and Baluchistan province. Spiritual leaders who’ve voiced opposition to police violence and Iran’s use of the dying penalty towards minorities have confronted retribution from authorities, together with harassment, interrogations and arrests.
In line with the report, this contains clerics who’ve decried the killings of protestors who took to the streets to protest the dying of Mahsa Amini. JURIST’s Iran correspondent reported on the police response to those protests, describing their very own near-deadly interplay:
Unexpectedly I noticed a bunch of cops had been passing by that sidewalk to disperse small teams of individuals to forestall them from protesting. As they had been passing by me, the lead officer instructed me to go residence. Nevertheless, since I used to be not doing something unlawful by sitting there, I continued working with my cellphone, however I quickly realized it was not going to finish that manner. One of many officers was observing me and as I regarded again in his eyes, he took his gun and pointed it to my face with out saying any phrases. The gun was about 8 inches away from my face and I used to be certain these had been the final moments of my life. He pulled the set off however apparently the gun was empty and he needed to scare me (I got here to that conclusion after he had already pulled the set off and I used to be not bleeding).
The CHRI report gives a variety of tales to color a full image of the persecution Sunni spiritual leaders face: One man, a Baluchi Sunni cleric named Mowlawi Ebrahim Hassan-Zahi, was arrested strolling residence from his mosque in February. He’s nonetheless being held and is reportedly topic to torture. One other man, a Kurdish Sunni spiritual chief named Mamosta Seifollah Hosseini, was arrested the identical day he gave a speech on the funerals of two protestors who had been shot and killed.
CHRI emphasised that Iran is violating each Iranian regulation and worldwide regulation, pointing to the Iranian constitution, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the UN’s Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials, all of which include human rights protections. As well as, Articles 2 and 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights defend freedom of thought, perception and faith, and Article 20 protects the liberty of peaceable meeting. Regardless of this, Iran continues to execute drug offenders and protesters.
