28 lawyers request the head of the judiciary to review the Gonabadi dervishes case

A group of lawyers have issued a statement regarding the imprisoned dervishes in Iran. The signatories have considered “the freedom of the dervishes in prison and exile” as “the most appropriate solution for the justice system to heal the bitterness and create national unity.”

A statement issued by 28 lawyers in Iran regarding the dervishes' case states: "Deprivation of social rights and the prevention of the exercise of all or part of legal rights and the deprivation of the right to defense are policies and unwritten laws that have long plagued the dervishes of the Nematollahi Gonabadi order."

The signatories in this statement, referring to the values ​​emphasized by Noor Ali Tabandeh, the leader of the Dervishes, including the “rule of law,” which he “advised” “to his followers even in conditions of restrictions and deprivation,” write: “It would have been more fitting that with the generosity and tolerance of adversity from all the parties involved, social challenges and conflicts, especially the bitter incident known as the “Seventh Golestan,” would never have occurred.”

The 28 lawyers who issued this statement have considered "the restorative justice approach, peaceful and pacifist methods, and the use of legal capacities as the most appropriate solution for the justice system to repair the bitterness" and "the creation of national unity, the release of the imprisoned and exiled dervishes, in order to defend the rights of the imprisoned dervishes and to bring order to the Iranian judicial system."

The signatories have called on the head of the judiciary to "issue an order to review and re-examine the case of the imprisoned dervishes so that, at a time when the dervish community is grieving the loss of its leader, the dervishes and their families can be freed from the additional suffering and hardship of imprisonment and exile."

Noor Ali Tabandeh, the leader of the Gonabadi Dervishes, died on Tuesday, December 24, at the age of 92 in a hospital in Tehran.

Among the 28 lawyers who signed this statement are Abdolsamad Khorramshahi, Abdolfattah Soltani, Amir Raisan, Hossein Taj, and Arash Kaykhosravi.

On February 20, 2017 (and March 1, 2017), Gonabadi dervishes gathered on Tehran's Seventh Pasdaran Street to protest the siege of Noor Ali Tabandeh's house and the miserable conditions they said had been created for their leader. The gathering descended into chaos with the intervention of the police and plainclothes officers.

That night and the next morning, according to the dervishes, hundreds of dervishes were arrested and many were taken to four hospitals due to beatings after arrest. All of them, after outpatient treatment and other detainees, were transferred to two prisons, Evin and Fashafoyeh, and the women were sent to Qarchak prison.

Dozens of those arrested in those days were female dervishes. Shokofeh Yadollahi, Sima Entesari, and Sepideh Moradi were three female Gonabadi dervishes who were released from prison on February 10 after serving nearly two years in prison.