Four Dervishes from Kavar have been charged with “forming a terrorist group against the government,” “participating in gatherings with the aim of overthrowing the regime,” “enmity against God” and “having illegal weapons” in the revolutionary court of Shiraz on Saturday morning, 5th of April.
According to several reports from Iran and Majzooban noor website Mohsen Esmaili, Seyyed Ebrahim Bahrami, Mohammad Ali Sadeghi and Mohammad Ali Dehghan were tried by Judge Vaezi in branch 14. of the Shiraz Revolutionary Court Shiraz and charged with “forming a terrorist group against the government,” “participating in gatherings with the aim of overthrowing the regime,” “enmity against God” and “having illegal weapons”. All these fabricated charges were denied by them and their lawyer, Kamran Sadeghi. These persons belong to the mystical order of Shah Nematollah Gonabadi and were kept in the Adel Abad prison of Shiraz.
Meanwhile the head of the International Organisation to preserve Human Rights in Iran (IOPHRI), Dr. Seyed Mostafa Azmayesh, had a talk to the representative for Human Rights of the German government, Mr. Christoph Strässer, about the situation of religious minorities in Iran. He stressed on the fact that the persecutions of Baha’i, Ahl-e Hagh, Nematollahi Gonabadi Dervishes and others by the regime in Iran are purely programmatic and due to the current ideology under Ali Khamenei. The gruesome ideology regards the mystics as a danger as they refuse to submit to the religious leader Khamenei who claims to be the vicar of God on earth and does not tolerate the principle of the Dervishes to have their spiritual master. Dervishes don’t accept the mixing of politics and religion as Mr. Khameneis ideology claims to be the best thing to do to manage a society. For these reasons the regime fabricates the charge of Mohareb (enmity against God) and can easily arrest those it would like to silence, damage or exterminate. The cases of the Dervishes were brought to the attention of the German official.
The four Dervishes had been arrested on April 30th, 2013 in Kavar, close to Shiraz and were incarcerated in the intelligence center of Shiraz for a month under physical torture.
Their family photos were misused to threaten and intimidate them. According to their accounts the agents have been insulting their beliefs and the history of the Goanabadi Nematollahi community to put them under more pressure.
This pressure has caused them various sufferings ranging from back ache and nervous problems for one of them, which in fact makes it necessary to send him to the hospital.
In September 2011, some hardliner groups were incited by a young Mullah who had been send to the region. They gathered in front of the houses of the Dervishes in Kشvar and insulted them. This resulted in a contention in which a Dervish was killed by being shot and several were wounded. Since then there has been a great amount of arrests and pressure upon the Dervishes of Kavar during which 100 of them have been arrested, tortured and tried. The arrests are still continuing but despite all complaints of Dervishes there is no arrest and judiciary process on those who caused all these conflicts.
The four Dervishes have been sentenced to exile in Bandar Abbas, province of Khuzestan.