Preventing religious rites .. Thus Iran persecutes Muslims within its territory (report)
In a continuation of the pace of persecution used by the Iranian authorities with the Sunnis in Tehran, the authorities have forbidden them to perform prayers and raise the adhaan by raiding the security services of the mosques , preventing worshipers from performing their prayers and stopping the rituals and prevented them from performing Taraweeh and Eid prayers.
Information about the real size of Sunnis in Iran is mixed. Iran's semi-official statistics say they make up 10 percent of the population, but some Sunni sources say they make up 30 percent which agree with old statistics conducted during the Shah's rule.According to independent sources, the Sunnis make up between 15 and 20 percent of Iran's population.The Iranian regime deliberately does not produce accurate statistics on the ethnic distribution of the population.
Persecution of Muslims in Iran
In this regard, Sunni Muslims in Iran suffer many cases of persecution and security control in addition to ethnic discrimination and try to prevent them from practicing religious rites freely. One of the most important unfair practices to the Sunnis in Iran is to prevent them from building mosques in the predominantly Shiite areas such as Tehran and Isfahan, There are more than a million Sunni Muslims in Tehran, yet there is no mosque there.
Prevention of prayer
The Iranian authorities banned the Sunnis in Tehran from performing the Eid prayer at their only remaining mosque in the Iranian capital, as the security forces raided the prayer hall in the area of "Bonk" and prevented the worshipers from praying.
The Bonk mosque is a small building and is the only prayer place for the Sunnis in the Iranian capital, Tehran, which was demolished in July 2015 by the Tehran municipality and with the support of the police and security forces. However, some worshipers have re-built part of it, which is currently used for prayer.
Arrest of worshipers
In this regard, after the Iranian authorities prevented Sunni children from praying, the police-backed Internal Security Forces prevented them from entering the mosque and arrested several of them who attempted to enter into force before they were released shortly after the protest of the rest of the worshipers. Security and police elements treat badly with the worshipers and broke into the place without any judicial memorandum and without a reason to besiege the mosque .
Stop official permits
The Iranian authorities closed several mosques in Iran, including a Sunni mosque in the city of Asadiya in the southern province of Khorasan, where they were prevented from performing Taraweeh prayers, and issued a decision to stop all official permits to build mosques in the area.
"The Sunni people there make up a very large proportion of the population of the southern province, but they face considerable harassment while doing their religious rites," the human rights watchdog in Iran"Harana" said, adding that "Citizens have replaced places of worship in their homes instead of mosques".
The official website of the Observatory pointed out that the phenomenon of home worship places has become apparent in the cities where the Sunnis live in Iran, although the authorities consider this illegal and closed if discovered.