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Iran human rights report: Sunni religious leaders persecuted for protesting state violence – JURIST

The Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) released a special report on Tuesday saying that Iranian authorities are targeting, arresting and persecuting Sunni Muslim religious leaders for their opposition to the use of state violence.CHRI details the situation facing Sunni religious leaders, who are a religious minority in Shia-majority Iran, in the country’s Kurdish provinces and its Sistan and Baluchistan province. Religious leaders who have voiced opposition to police violence and Iran’s use of the death penalty against minorities have faced retribution from authorities, including harassment, interrogations and arrests.According to the report, this includes clerics who have decried the killings of protestors who took to the streets to protest the death of Mahsa Amini. JURIST’s Iran correspondent reported on the police response to these protests, describing their own near-deadly interaction:All of a sudden I realized a group of police officers were passing by that sidewalk to disperse small groups of people to prevent them from protesting. As they were passing by me, the lead officer told me to go home. However, since I was not doing anything illegal by sitting there, I continued working with my phone, but I soon realized it was not going to end that way. One of the officers was staring at me and as I looked back in his eyes, he took his gun and pointed it to my face without saying any words. The gun was about 8 inches away from my face and I was sure those were the last moments of my life. He pulled the trigger but apparently the gun was empty and he wanted to scare me (I came to that conclusion after he had already pulled the trigger and I was not bleeding).The CHRI report provides a number of stories to paint a full picture of the persecution Sunni religious leaders face: One man, a Baluchi Sunni cleric named Mowlawi Ebrahim Hassan-Zahi, was arrested walking home from his mosque in February. He is still being held and is reportedly subject to torture. Another man, a Kurdish Sunni religious leader named Mamosta Seifollah Hosseini, was arrested the same day he gave a speech at the funerals of two protestors who had been shot and killed.CHRI emphasized that Iran is violating both Iranian law and international law, 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 contain human rights protections. In addition, Articles 2 and 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights protect freedom of thought, belief and religion, and Article 20 protects the freedom of peaceful assembly. Despite this, Iran continues to execute drug offenders and protesters.