NCRI – On Saturday morning, February 28, 2009, one of the followers of "Ahl-e-Haq" (a Shiite offshoot adhering to Imam Ali the first Shiite Imam) prisoners, identified as Mr. Mehdi Ghasem Zadeh, was hanged by the mullahs’ henchmen at the central prison of Orumieh, northwestern Iran.
He was arrested and imprisoned in October 2004 with three other dervishes and subjected to torture. The other three prisoners, Sahand Ali Mohammadi, Bakhsh Ali Mohammadi, and Abdollah Ghasem Zadeh, have received thirteen year prison sentences and are still incarcerated.
After setting the stage for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to become the mullahs’ president, the Iranian regime’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, stepped up suppression and mistreatment of Sufis. Agents of the faction affiliated to Khamenei at the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) are actively pursuing the suppression of dervishes with the goal of uprooting them in the country. This trend has its origins in the early years after the 1979 revolution in Iran.
Some of the inhuman and anti-Islamic measures by the criminal rulers against followers of "Ahle Hagh" include:
1. Repeated demolition of, and setting fire to, seminaries, mosques, and assembly halls of dervishes in Kish, Qom, Boroujerd, Isfahan, and other cities; Arresting hundreds of dervishes and transferring them to the horrendous wards of 209 and 242 at Tehran’s Evin prison.
2. Simultaneous raids by the MOIS agents, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the State Security Forces (SSF) – mullahs' suppressive police, and other organs of the regime against assembly halls belonging to Gonabadi dervishes in Isfahan’s "Takhte Foulad" district, and razing their premises with bulldozers while arresting the dervishes present at the scene (February 18, 2009).
3. Attacking dervish protest gatherings across from the mullahs’ Majlis (parliament) building and arresting 700 participants in the demonstration. The elderly and women were among those arrested. The detainees were then transferred to the notorious Evin prison on charges such as "advocating propaganda against the regime" and "disturbing public order" (February 21, 2009).
4. Transferring 16 arrested dervishes to the central prison of Isfahan and subjecting them to torture (February 22, 2009).
5. Interrogation of 100 dervishes on charges of "causing disorder in the national security" by an agent named Haddad, deputy head of the security of Tehran’s prosecutor (February 25, 2009).
6. Ban on religious and dervish rituals.
7. Brutally attacking and beating up worshippers and arresting them during religious and dervish rituals, including the targeting of the mass prayers of dervishes at the demolished site of Takhte Foulad mosque in Isfahan (February 26, 2009).
8. Banning sheikhs to visit other dervishes, summoning and interrogating Gonabadi dervishes, their mistreatment, imposing constant pressures on them and exiling them and their relatives.
The Iranian Resistance condemns the inhuman and un-Islamic suppressive measures against dervishes and urges all international human rights organizations to investigate the deteriorating state of religious minorities in Iran. The Iranian Resistance also calls on the United Nations Secretary General and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to condemn these measures and to appoint a Special Rapporteur for religious freedom in Iran in order to end such brutal and inhuman suppression.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
March 1, 2009
