Charging protesters in Iran with capital offences is wrong, a prominent Sunni cleric says, as renewed demonstrations shook Iran’s restive southeast in the third month of protests despite a violent state clampdown.
Videos posted by the Iran Human Rights group showed minority ethnic Baluch women chanting “I will kill whoever killed my brother”, and police shooting what it said was birdshot and teargas at demonstrators. Another unverified video showed injured protesters treated at a makeshift clinic in a mosque.
Molavi Abdolhamid, a powerful dissenting Sunni voice in the Shi’ite-ruled Islamic Republic, said it was wrong for the hardline judiciary to charge protesters with “moharebeh” – an Islamic term meaning warring against God – which carries the death penalty.
“A person who has protested with stones and sticks or just by shouting should not be accused of moharebeh. What the Koran calls moharebeh is when a group uses arms and engages (in fighting),” Molavi Abdolhamid said in a Friday prayers sermon, according to his website.
Hanging is the most common method of execution in Iran.
Besides Zahedan, the capital of Sistan-Baluchistan province where Molavi Abdolhamid spoke, protests were held in Chabahar, Taftan and other parts of the impoverished province, according to videos posted on social media. Reuters could not verify the footage.
Read the article in the Blue Mountains Gazette (AAP).