Skip to main content

Iran: Friday Prayer Leaders and Military Officials Harshly Attack

Iran: Friday Prayer Leaders and Military Officials Harshly Attack Dervishes25 February 2018


Iran Focus
London, 25 Feb - While in recent days, Iranian judicial authorities have emphasized on dealing with the arrested people in the Pasdaran avenue demonstrations, some of the Friday prayer leaders in Iran called these people “terrorists” and “British affiliates”, comparing them with Daesh (ISIS) in Iraq and Syria.

Iranian authorities have repeatedly called foreign countries “responsible” for protests in Iran.

Earlier, government and security officials have accused the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran, the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia of being involved in the mass protests in Iran in early January.

According to the state-run Fars News Agency on February 13, Mohammad Ali Movahedi Kermani, Tehran’s Friday prayer leader, referring to the clashes between the Dervishes and the police and Basij forces, called on the judiciary to stricktly and severly deal with what he called “the criminals who committed assassinations and acts of aggression against people’s property”.

Friday prayer leaders in Isfahan, Qom, Shiraz, Mashhad and a number of other cities have also spoken against the Gonabadi Dervishes.

Meanwhile, chief of the general staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, Hossein Bagheri, issued a message on Thursday calling the killing of three members of security forces and two Basijis in the clashes on Pasdaran Avenue as “brutal crime of the source of corruption and ISIS scum of Dervish façade.”

He stated: “Strong defenders of national security do not allow the plays like those in Pasdaran Avenue to be repeated and will resolutely deal with every threat to the security of citizens.”

Bagheri also called the dervishes involved in clashes with the security forces in the Pasdaran Avenue as “a dirty and mercenary community.”

Monday night and early Tuesday clashes occurred between Iranian regime security forces and Gonabadi Dervishes on Pasdaran Avenue in Tehran in which according to the regime officials the officers of security forces and two members of Basij forces were killed. A number of Dervishes were also reportedly killed during the clashes.Head of Tehran’s police, Hassan Rahimi, in a TV interview on Wednesday, February 21 said: “We could hit the intended home (of dervishes) with RPG (rocket-propelled grenade), but we were acting and with tact and authority.”

Security officials announced that 300 dervishes were arrested and Majzoban Noor website announced that there is no news about the situation of hundreds of detained dervishes.

The gathering of Gonabadi dervishes in front of the police station 102 in Pasdaran Avenue (north of Tehran) started after one of their leaders named Nematollah Riyahi was arrested.

Government actions against dervishes have intensified since 2005. In this year, the widespread destruction of the praying places of Gonabadi dervishes in different cities of Iran started and a large number of dervishes were arrested.

Gonabadi dervishes have been facing persecution, imprisonment, deprivation of social rights, threats... for more than 15 years.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

WE SHOULD LISTEN CLOSELY TO IRAN Created: 26 January 2018 Iran Maryam Rajavi NCRI PMOI/MEK Human rights Protests United States Opinion JCPOA Paris Middle East Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei (Photo by Supreme Leader Press Office / Handout/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images) By Heshmat Alavi As the world continues to debate the recent Iranian outburst of protests, its "lack of leadership" as they claim, and the road ahead, there is no doubt in the minds of senior Iranian regime officials over who led, and continues to lead, this latest uprising that continues to rattle the very pillars of the mullahs' rule.Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei made his thoughts crystal clear.“The incidents were organized” and carried out by the Iranian opposition People's Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), he said although using a different term. “The [MEK] had prepared for this months ago” and “the [MEK’s] media outlets had called for it.” The MEK is best known ...

French FM Visits Iran to Talk Ballistic Missiles and Syria

French FM Visits Iran to Talk Ballistic Missiles and Syria05 March 2018 Iran Focus London, 05 Mar - The French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, has arrived in Iran to talk with the country's president Hassan Rouhani, Ali Shamkhani, the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council and the Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, according to Iranian state TV. Talks are expected to focus on Iran’s involvement in the Syrian Civil war and Iran's ballistic missile program, which both Le Drian and French President Emmanuel Macron have criticized Iran's missile program in recent weeks, with Le Drian stating that Iran's ballistic missile capacity worried France “enormously". In response to Iranian claims that their ballistic missile program is peaceful, Le Drian said: "Having such tools is not uniquely defensive, given the distance they can reach." The French Foreign Ministry even issued a statement ahead of the trip, which said Le Drian ...
THE MAGAZINE: From the August 21 Issue Tortured by 'Moderates' Iran's dissidents deserve a hearing AUG 21, 2017 | By KELLY JANE TORRANCE Shabnam Madadzadeh, her brother Farzad, and Arash Mohammadi. Photo credit: KELLY JANE TORRANCE / THE WEEKLY STANDARD Hassan Rouhani was sworn in for his second term as president of Iran on August 5, surrounded by fresh flowers, fervent followers, and around 500 foreign officials. Representatives of the United Kingdom, France, the United Nations, and the Vatican rubbed shoulders with the Syrian prime minister, Hezbollah second-in-command Naim Qassem, Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader and FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list member Ramadan Abdullah Shallah, and murderous Zimbabwean dictator Robert Mugabe. The Westerners didn’t seem uncomfortable in such company; indeed, European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini was described as the star of the show after Iranian members of parliament elbowed through the crowd to take selfies with the...