The regime in Iran continues to suppress political freedoms, the opposition, as well as all political parties, which has led to religious persecution.
Human Rights Watch said that Iran remains one of the countries in the world, applying the death penalty to individuals convicted of crimes committed when they were children and under vague national security charges, and sometimes used it in the context of non-violent crimes.
According to a report by the Iranian organization “Iran Human Rights”, at least more than 700 executions were carried out in Iran between January and November 2023. This figure represents a significant increase compared to the same period of 2022. Among those executed were 238 people accused of “premeditated murder”, and 390 for “drug-related crimes”. In addition, ten people received death sentences on political, security or blasphemy charges, and one person was sentenced to death on espionage charges.
Judicial authorities have dramatically stepped up the use of vague national security-related charges that carry out death penalty against protesters, including for allegedly injuring others and destroying public property. After grossly unfair trials, during which many defendants were unable to communicate with a lawyer of their choice, the Iranian authorities issued 25 death sentences against the background of the demonstrations. As of September 20, the Iranian authorities had executed seven people while the Supreme Court dismissed 11 other cases.
The Iranian authorities have also severely restricted freedom of assembly and expression, arresting hundreds of activists, lawyers, journalists, students and artists. The authorities also targeted individuals who spoke publicly from the families of the dead or the families of protesters executed after unfair trials, and pressured them to avoid holding a memorial service on the anniversary of their deaths.
The crackdown extended to universities. Since late July, at least 29 university professors who criticized government policies have been dismissed, suspended, forced to retire, or their contracts have not been renewed, the actual number is probably higher. According to the „Voluntary Committee for Monitoring the Situation of Detainees”, since September last year at least 161 students have faced disciplinary proceedings for protest-related activities. The number of those summoned to disciplinary commissions was much higher. On August 8, the “Branch 26 of the Tehran Revolutionary Court” sentenced the student activists of Allama Tabatabaei University Zia Nabavi and Hasti Amiri to one year in prison on charges of “propaganda against the state”, for participating in protests against the alleged poisoning of schoolgirls in the country.
Artists who publicly supported the protest movement faced reprisals, arrests and prosecutions. The authorities targeted dozens of prominent figures supporting the protests, including Tranh Alidosti, who was released from prison on January 4.
Dozens of human rights and workers’ rights defenders and civil society activists remain in detention, including Nargis Mohammadi, Bahareh Hedayat, Nilufer Bayani, Sepideh Kashani, Homan Gokar, Taher Kadirian, Kiwan Samimi, Reza Shahabi, Anisha Asdalehi, Mehdi Mahmoudian and Sepideh Qalyan, and the authorities continue to harass, arrest and prosecute those seeking accountability and justice.
In February, the Iranian authorities announced a broad amnesty that allegedly included those arrested, accused or detained during large-scale protests. On March 13, Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei, the head of the Iranian judiciary, said that amnesty orders related to the protests included 22 thousand people.
However, the amnesty excluded many human rights defenders sentenced to long prison terms and protesters facing death penalty charges. Since April, the authorities have arrested, sentenced or summoned dozens of activists, some of whom were recently released and granted amnesty.
On April 28, Iranian security forces raided the home of Mohammad Habibie, an imprisoned spokesman for the Tehran teachers’ Union, and arrested nine activists who were visiting his family. Most of these activists were previously unjustly imprisoned.
The political persecution stems from continuous religious persecution over many years, as it is estimated that the number of non-Shiite Iranian citizens exceeds ten million people, which is about 12% of the population, Kurds, Arabs and Baloch Sunni Muslims make up the majority, while Christians, Zoroastrians, Mandaeans, Baha’is and Jews account for about 2 percent, but their numbers are declining periodically, due to the pressure exerted on them.
While the Iranian authorities distributed a card compulsorily to various residents of the country, containing information identifying the religion and denomination of the person receiving it, it is the only means of accessing the internet and social networks, which means that the Iranian security authorities can follow the activities, interests and forms of communication of citizens belonging to religious and confessional minorities directly.
During the 90s, while the wave of the reformist movement was rising in the country under the leadership of Mohammad Khatami, a parliamentary, popular and political debate was escalating in Iran about the rights and conditions of religious and confessional minorities in the country, but the crushing of the reformist wave at that time overthrew any talk about this until now.
Among the most prominent groups that have been persecuted in Iran are Christians. The history of the Christian presence in Iran, the heiress of Persia, dates back to the early years of the mission of Christ, as Thomas, one of the twelve disciples of Christ, the Apostle to Mesopotamia and Persia, is the first to preach Christianity there. After the arrival of Islam in Iran, it became the prime religion in the country, and it was dominated by the Sunni sect in the first eras of its spread, later then the Shiite, and in light of this, the number of Iranian Christians has been reduced and they have become a minority whose existence is barely known to the world.
Statistics indicate that there are about 350,000 Christians in Iran, while the Iranian Statistics Center reported that their number cannot exceed 120,000 and the latest census revealed the presence of 117,000 seven hundred Christians out of 82 million people. But human rights organizations confirmed in a report that their number is equivalent to 800,000 and that they are living in deplorable conditions as a result of the persecution they are living.
It was obvious that the role of Christians in Iranian society shrank after the fall of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in 1979 and the rise of a theocratic regime led by Ayatollah Khomeini, as many emigrated to escape the policy of “Islamization” of life in Iran at the expense of other components of society.
International organizations say that Christians in Iran suffer from discrimination and persecution, they do not have the right to express their religious beliefs in front of others.
The state system prohibits them from practicing their rituals in the Persian language, for fear of the spread of Christianity among Iranians, especially since the country’s laws prevent conversion to the Christian religion or calling for it.
The Iranian authorities treat Christians and minorities as second-class citizens, a Christian Iranian does not have the same right as a Muslim Iranian and sometimes prohibits them from communicating with other members of their communities, especially Armenians and Assyrians.
The report of the “International Religious Freedom Committee“ stated that Iran has witnessed many measures related to the restriction of religious freedoms and the index of religious freedoms continued to decline for all recognized and unrecognized religious groups, as the government targeted Baha’i and Christian converts in particular.
While Muslims make up about 99.4 percent of the population in Iran, the Shiite community makes up the vast majority by 90 to 95 percent, while the Sunni community makes up about 5 to 10 percent, according to US government statistics.
The persecution begins in the early stages of a Sunni citizen’s life, who, along with other minorities, is forced to study Shi’a curricula inside Iran.
Iranian minorities who do not speak Persian are forced to translate the allowed educational curricula at their own cost, until the Ministry of Education reviews them for approval. While recognized minorities in Iran are able to open their own schools, the Sunni minority has been denied this.
Sunni Iranian citizens are concentrated in the provinces of Kurdistan, Khuzestan, Sistan and Baluchestan, where they are subjected to various kinds of persecution by the judicial and security authorities. An earlier UN report detailed the executions of Sunni Kurdish detainees, as well as arrests on charges such as “eating in a public place, engaging in environmental activities, breaking the fast during Ramadan and celebrating the results of the referendum in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Human rights centers such as „Harana” also reported information about the poor conditions suffered by Sunni detainees in Iranian prisons.
Sunni clerics and worshippers are being subjected to restrictions on the level of ritual practice, according to the report on religious freedoms around the world issued by the US government.
There are about 15 thousand mosques in Iran belonging to the Sunni community, but they are closer to prayer rooms or halls than to mosques in the well-known traditional sense.
There are only about nine mosques dedicated to Sunnis in Tehran, according to Iranian endowments, and Sunni activists say that the Iranian authorities prevent them from building new mosques in the city, although the mosques are insufficient and cannot accommodate the Sunnis in the Iranian capital. Members of the Sunni minority are forced to build underground mosques known as prayer houses or „Namaz Khaneh” in Persian.
According to official Iranian statistics, the Sunni community is one of the largest minorities in Iran, as it constitutes 10% of the components of the Iranian people, and what makes the Sunni minority more unequal than others is the national diversity that characterizes it, as it consists of other nationalities, namely Baloch and Turkmen, which are relatively large minorities. Unfortunately, the Sunni-populated areas of Iran are considered one of the poorest and most degraded compared to other regions. The unemployment rate in these regions is also the highest compared to other regions, and the rate of economic development is the lowest for the rest of the Iranian regions. In addition, the Iranian state’s policy in these areas is the most strict, which leads these minorities to form resistances through which they defend their identity and demand liberation for most of them, while Sunni scientists say that it is up to 20%. Arabs account for 3% of the population according to official statistics, but researcher Yusuf Azizi confirms that Arabs make up more than 7,7% of the population of Iran. Of these, 3,5 million are in “Ahwaz”, the majority of them are Shiites, 1,5 million Arabs on the coasts of the Arabian Gulf are Sunnis, and half a million are scattered in various places of Iran.
Although the Arab Ahwaz are divided between the Sunni and Shiite sects, they have a great sense of pride in their “Arab” national identity, which provokes the indignation of the Iranians towards them, leading to the formation of a united front from all for the liberation of this country, which represents the back of the Arabian Gulf, and the Iranian economy depends on it by 85%.
Despite all these campaigns, Terry Covell in the book “Iran – The Hidden Revolution”, points out that the doctrine of the Sunnis is spreading very widely in the occupied Ahwaz, in addition to its spread in the predominantly Sunni Ahwazi Gulf coasts, there are other huge numbers in the city of Kut Abdullah south of Ahwaz, the capital, and in many neighborhoods east of Ahwaz, in addition to the presence of significant numbers in the cities of fallahiya, Abadan, and mohammara.
Sunnis in Ahvaz have been going out in mass demonstrations on the first days of Eid al-Adha and Eid al-Fitr every year, in order to hold Eid prayers in the open, despite the Iranian terrorist campaigns that precede Eid by ten days every year and continue even after the expiration of its time period. Therefore, Ahwazis are prevented from holding Eid al-Adha and Eid al-Fitr prayers every year.
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