Continued Religious Freedom Repression in Iran; Exile of Gonabadi Dervishes Does Not Satisfy Authorities
Reza Yavari, one of the Gonabadi dervishes recently released from prison, has called the exile of Gonabadi dervishes illegal.
Reza Yavari, one of the Gonabadi dervishes who was arrested following the Golestan Seventh incident and, after serving his sentence, was released from Shiban Prison in Ahvaz in mid-Farvardin due to a conditional pardon based on a recent circular from the judiciary regarding the coronavirus outbreak, stated in his conversation with Voice of America that the number of exiled dervishes is 39 people. He said that, like some other Gonabadi dervishes who were released from prison, he was sent alone a month after his release to the city of Taibaad to serve his two-year exile sentence.
According to this Gonabadi dervish, the exile sentences of Yavari and 38 other Gonabadi dervishes to the cities of Taibaad and Khaf in Razavi Khorasan Province, Zahedan and Mirjaveh in Sistan and Baluchestan Province, Kahnuj in Kerman Province, and Borazjan in Bushehr Province have been implemented, while the exiled dervishes have been conditionally released. Since the principal punishment, such as imprisonment of these individuals, has been negated, the implementation of the supplementary punishment of exile is meaningless and illegal.
The exile of Gonabadi dervishes by the Iranian government has been implemented at a time when the coronavirus outbreak has not been fully controlled in various Iranian cities. As of Monday, June 5, 2020, officials of the Islamic Republic officially announced 7,451 deaths, with the total number of infected reaching 137,724 people.
This is while a World Health Organization official had previously stated that the figures announced by Iranian authorities regarding coronavirus cases represent only one-fifth of the actual number of infected individuals. Official statistics of patients and deaths from COVID-19 in Iran, China, and Russia are not verifiable by independent experts and cannot be considered authoritative and final.
Reza Yavari, the only exiled dervish in Taibaad, referring to the fact that the exiles carried out have not satisfied the authorities regarding the harassment of dervishes, told Voice of America that currently some dervishes, such as Saeed Saltanpur, who is serving his exile period in Zahedan in Sistan and Baluchestan Province, along with Ahmad Irankhah and Mehdi Bakhtiari, who are also serving their exile in Borazjan, are repeatedly summoned by the intelligence office of the police force in their place of exile and are being harassed.
More than 27 months have passed since the Golestan Seventh incident and the attacks by security forces and special units on Gonabadi dervishes in front of the house of Noor Ali Tabandeh, the former head of this order, following which 202 of them were imprisoned and sentenced to over 1,080 years in prison combined, and the harassment of Gonabadi dervishes by the Iranian government continues.
Reza Yavari cited his greatest current concern as the continued imprisonment of 8 other Gonabadi dervishes named Mostafa Abedi, Mohammad Sharifi Moghaddam, Kasraye Nouri, Abbas Dehqan, Kianosh Abbaszadeh, Amin Safaei, Reza Cigarechi, and Vahid Khomoshi, saying: “In these circumstances of the coronavirus crisis, I am concerned about their health.”
Based on one of the provisions of the judiciary circular issued in the previous month of Esfand, political prisoners convicted of “action against national security” to serve more than 5 years in prison are “exempt from being sent on leave.” This has prompted not only reactions from prisoners and their families, but also responses from human rights activists and officials of some countries.
Mike Pompeo, the U.S. Secretary of State, said some time ago at a press conference: “We have asked not only Syria, but also the Islamic Republic of Iran, in these circumstances, not only to release American citizens, but all those who have been unjustly imprisoned. This is a humanitarian action and apart from the fact that these individuals have been illegally imprisoned, in these circumstances humanitarian principle requires that they be released from prison.”
Previously, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom also expressed concern about the state of religious and denominational freedoms in Iran in its annual report, and in the section of this annual report related to Iran, which was published on Tuesday, April 29, announced that the Islamic Republic has increasingly targeted Muslim minorities, particularly Sunni Muslims and dervishes, as well as followers of other religions and sects, including Baha’is and Christians.
Source: Voice of America
