September 21, 2018
Since May 2018, revolutionary courts in Tehran have sentenced at least 208 Gonabadi Dervishes to prison terms and other punishments, with one member sent away for more than 26 years, Human Rights Watch has reported.
The authorities detained more than 300 Sufis in the Fashafuyeh and Qarchak prisons after February protests that ended in violent clashes between protesters and security forces in Tehran.
The courts handed down sentences that include prison terms ranging from four months to 26 years, flogging, internal exile, travel bans, and a ban on membership in social and political groups. Human Rights Watch pointed out that flogging as punishment is rated as torture under international human rights law.
“The unjust trials of over 200 Dervishes is one of the largest crackdowns against a religious minority in Iran in a decade,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Authorities have used the February protests as an excuse to intimidate this vulnerable group and silence another segment of Iranian society demanding basic rights from a repressive security state.”
During January and February, dozens of Dervish community members continuously gathered on Golestan-e Haftom Street in the Pasdaran neighborhood in north Tehran to protect the residence of their spiritual leader, Noor Ali Tabandeh, whom they feared intelligence agencies planned to arrest. On February 19 and 20, clashes between security forces and some protesters left several dozen Dervish members injured and five law enforcement agents dead, including three who were struck by a bus.
During trials that lasted as short as 15 minutes, judges repeatedly insulted the accused and focused their questions on their faith as opposed to any recognizable crime, Human Rights Watch quoted its sources as saying.
Authorities handed down more than 40 sentences in absentia, after accused Dervishes did not appear in court.
On August 15, the Majzooban-e Noor Twitter account, which is linked to the Gonabadi Dervishes, reported that revolutionary court had sentenced Mostafa Abdi, one of its editors, to 26 years and three months in prison, 148 lashes, and two years of internal exile. The sentence also banned him for two years after his release from traveling outside Iran and prohibited him from membership in political parties and activities connected with the media, including social media.
On August 18, Faezeh Abdipour, the wife of Mohammadi Sharifi, a student and children’s rights activist, tweeted that Judge Abol-Qasem Salavati had sentenced Sharifi to 12 years in prison, 74 lashes, two years of internal exile, a two-year travel ban, and a ban on membership in political parties and social groups, and activities connected with the media, including social media.
Since 2009, Salavati has issued hundreds of verdicts against human rights defenders and political activists and is infamous among Tehran dissidents.
As evidence against Sharifi, Abdipour reported, the court charged him with activities that do not appear to be criminal offenses, such as: “visiting the family of Reza Shahabi, a union activist, on September 28, 2017, and calling for an illegal demonstration in his support in front of the Labor Ministry on December 26, 2017;” “supporting the Dervish minority and others during a speech at a student open tribune at Sharif University;” “creating the Telegram channel ‘No to urban death’ in support of dervishes;” and “participating in drafting a joint statement of student activists.”
On June 18, Mohammad Sallas, a member of the Dervish community, was executed for allegedly killing three police officers by driving a bus into a crowd of security officers during the February 19-20 clashes. He had been convicted March 18 after a trial whose fairness has been questioned.
The Nematollahi Gonabadi Dervishes consider themselves followers of Twelver Shia Islam, the official state religion in Iran, but authorities have persecuted them for their religious beliefs in recent years. Much of the clergy has been hostile to Sufis for centuries.