Iranian regime sentences 52 dervishes (sufi) to flogging and imprisonment

Iran: Dervishes’ attorneys also sentenced to five years imprisonment and licenses revoked

The Iranian regime has in the past two days intensified a crackdown on members of the Iranian dervish community, according to state-controlled papers. Last February, State Security Forces (SSF) and  paramilitary Basij forces brutally suppressed  Nematollahi dervishes in Qom, and burned their center and mosque in the city to the ground.

On May 4, the mullahs’ judiciary sentenced 52 of the dervishes on charges of public “intrusion” and civil “disobedience” to imprisonment, flogging and fines, according to the government-controlled  Kargozaran daily.

The sentenced dervishes are among the nearly 2000 people who were arrested in February in the course of the demolition of the Nematollahi dervishes’ Mosque in Qom.

In an unprecedent move, the lawyers were fined, sentenced to five years in prison and disbarred by the clerical regimethe for defending dervishes.

 A number of clerics, who have for years been involved in the torture and murder of the Iranian people, have issued fatwas to wipe out the Dervishes by declaring them a danager to Islam and calling for their suppression.

The Iranian Resistance urges all human rights organizations and the UN’s Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion and Beliefs  to condemn the crackdown on the Nematollahi Dervishes and take action in freeing those in custody.

Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
May 5, 2006