NCRI – On Wednesday, two attorneys defending dervishes and a few other members of the faith were arrested by the State Security Forces (SSF) – mullahs' suppressive police in the southern city of Shiraz.
Farshid Yadollahi and Omid Behrouzi were two lawyers defending Qom Dervishes in February 2006.
On February 15, 2006, the SSF crushed a demonstration by thousands of Nematollahi dervishes and the people in the holy city of Qom (in central Iran). The action led to extensive clashes between the people and the security forces in various neighborhoods in the city. The holy city of Qom shut down that Monday. Demonstrations and clashes continued into the next day.
The demonstration erupted in protest to the seizure of a religious center of the Nematollahi dervishes by the clerical regime as the protestors attempted to take the center back. More than 3,000 dervishes converged on the city on that day and began a protest action to take back the center. The regime’s agents cut-off water, gas and electricity to the building and build a wall in front of it.
The SSF brought in its special units (anti-riot forces) to control the unrest. Water cannons were also on the scene to disperse the crowds. The head of Qom’ SSF, an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (RGC) commander named Sajjadi, personally rushed to the scene and supervised the crackdown. The Nematollahi dervishes and a large number of Qom residents that had joined them clashed with SSF units and shouted anti-government slogans and threw stones and bricks to fend them off.
The clerical regime countered the next day by mobilizing bands of vigilantes that roamed the streets shouting “death to Monafegh” [Mojahedin] in an attempt to keep the demonstrators off the streets. The vigilantes numbered over 2,000 and shouted “Qom is not for Monafeghin.”
The SSF arrested more than 500 dervish protesters and their families in clashes and transferred them to an unknown location. There was a de facto martial law in Qom and many stores and shopping centers are closed.
