President Hassan Rohani was declared the first round’s outright winner on 15 June and took office on 3 August.
Rohani repeatedly said during his campaign that “all the political prisoners should be released.” He also said on several occasions that he wanted a change “in favour of free speech and media freedom.” These promises encouraged progressively-minded Iranians, especially young people and women, to give him their vote and make him the Islamic Republic’s seventh president.
Nonetheless, despite the release of some prisoners of conscience, Iran continues to be one of the world’s biggest prisons for peaceful Dervishes, journalists and netizens, with around 15 currently detained.
At least 10 more journalists and bloggers have been arrested since his election victory, 10 others have been sentenced to a combined total of 72 years in prison and three newspapers have been closed or forced to suspend publishing under pressure from the authorities.
“Blocking freedom of information and inhumane treatment of jailed Gonabadi Dervishes”
•Taking illegal action to confiscate the assets and property in the city of Beidokht (Baydokhth).
•According to Majzooban Noor, following the sending out notification by executive committee of Imam (Property Organization/ General Directorate of Khorasan) about a property belongs to Mr. Reza Ali Shah (Soltan Hossein Tabandeh/ Late Qutb), regarding the confiscation of the property, attorneys objected to the claim and a court hearing date was set for 20th of Mehr.
•The series of repeatedly cyber attacks during September and October on the Majzooban Noor Sufi News Agency which covers news about the Nematollahi Gonabadi Dervishes in Iran.
•Charges the verdicts against members of Nematollahi Gonabadi Sufi Order convicted in unfair trials.
•A Tehran revolutionary court passed long jail terms on seven Majzooban Noor contributors on 13 July on charges of anti-government propaganda, insulting the Supreme Leader and endangering national security. Hamidreza Moradi was sentenced to ten years in prison, Reza Entesari was sentenced to eight and a half years, and Mostafa Daneshjo, Farshid Yadollahi, Amir Islami, Omid Behrouzi and Afshin Karampour were each sentenced to seven and a half years.
•The court also banned all of them from practicing any kind of political or journalistic activity during the first five years after their release. The defendants, who had been held in Tehran’s Evin prison since September 2011, and their lawyers refused to attend the trial on the grounds that it was unfair.
•Branch 2 of the Revolutionary Court in Shiraz sentenced 4 Dervishes to prison terms ranging from one year to three years, followed by periods of internal exile, which bars them from living in their hometowns.
•Branch 2 of Shiraz’s Revolutionary Court convicted the four defendants of membership in an “anti-government” group intent on endangering national security, a reference to the website, and of disseminating “propaganda against the state.” According to the judgment, the court sentenced Saleh Moradi to three years in prison and three years of internal exile in Hormozgan province, Farzaneh Nouri, the mother of Farhad Nouri, a journalist based abroad who writes for the Sufi news website Majzooban Noor, was sentenced to two years in prison in early August by a court in the southwestern city of Shiraz and three years internal banishment in Khuzestan province, above all because of her son’s activities in exile, Behzad Noori to two years prison and three years internal banishment to Bushehr province, and Farzad Darvish to one year in prison and three years internal banishment to Sistan and Baluchestan province.
•Three Gonabadi Dervishes, residents of Kavar county in Fars province were sentenced to deportation forever by Shiraz’s Revolutionary Court for the rest of their lives. The Branch 2 of Shiraz Revolutionary Court issued its verdicts against three Gonabadi Dervishes, Messrs. Hamid-Reza Arayesh, Kazem Dehghan and Mohammad-Ali Shamshirzan, convicting all of them to life in exile. These four dervishes were accused of attending protests intended to overthrow the government, waging war against God and shipping illegal weapons.
•On Tuesday 3 September 2013, Adel Abad Prison’s Intelligence Unit officers entered the Ebrat section of the prison and forcefully shaved the Gonabadi Dervishes’s beards and their mustache as well as physically assaulting them. Nine Dervishes detained in section 350 of Evin prison shaved their hair to show support for the five Gonabadi Dervishes in Adel Abad prison who were attacked by security guards and had their hair and beards shaved.
•On Tuesday 29th October 2013, 31 political prisoners in section 350 of Evin prison, wrote a statement in which they condemned the illegal actions imposed on imprisoned lawyers who are in the Gonabadi Dervishes section of the prison, and expressed their concerns regarding the physical conditions of Hamid-Reza Moradi and Mostafa Daneshjoo.
•Troubling new movement against Dervishes by extremists in the city of Khorramshahr.
A number of religious extremists brutally beat a Gonabadi Dervish in the city of Khorramshahr after making telephone threats and graffiti on Dervishes’s places of worship in order to force him to declare renunciation of Sufism and close their house of worship (Hosseiniyeh).
•Imprisoned sick Dervishes are denied proper medical care so they have remained in urgent need of specialized medical care and in critical condition which led them facing with a serious and life threatening conditions because of trying to sabotage judiciary by some judicial authorities.
•A number of Dervishes including human rights activists, students and their family members have been summoned for interrogation by Intelligence Agencies in Tehran, Shiraz and other cities.