Prime Iran Sunni cleric says protesters shouldn’t face demise sentences By Reuters

© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: A police motorbike burns throughout a protest over the demise of Mahsa Amini, a girl who died after being arrested by the Islamic republic’s “morality police”, in Tehran, Iran September 19, 2022. WANA (West Asia Information Company) through REUTERS/File Phot

DUBAI (Reuters) – A distinguished Sunni cleric stated on Friday it was mistaken to cost protesters with capital offences as renewed demonstrations shook Iran’s restive southeast within the third month of protests regardless of a violent state clampdown.

Movies posted by the Iran Human Rights group confirmed minority ethnic Baluch girls chanting “I’ll kill whoever killed my brother”, and police capturing what it stated was birdshot and teargas at demonstrators. One other unverified video confirmed injured protesters handled at a makeshift clinic in a mosque.

Molavi Abdolhamid, a robust dissenting Sunni voice within the Shi’ite-ruled Islamic Republic, stated it was mistaken for the hardline judiciary to cost protesters with “moharebeh” — an Islamic time period which means warring towards God — which carries the demise penalty.

“An individual who has protested with stones and sticks or simply by shouting shouldn’t be accused of moharebeh. What the Koran calls moharebeh is when a gaggle makes use of arms and engages (in combating),” Molavi Abdolhamid stated in a Friday prayers sermon, in response to his web site.

Moreover Zahedan, the capital of Sistan-Baluchistan province the place Molavi Abdolhamid spoke, protests had been held in Chabahar, Taftan and different components of the impoverished province, in response to movies posted on social media. Reuters couldn’t confirm the footage.

On Tuesday, Javaid Rehman, a U.N.-appointed impartial knowledgeable on Iran, voiced concern that the repression of protesters was intensifying, with authorities launching a “marketing campaign” of sentencing them to demise.

Already, 21 folks arrested within the context of the protests face the demise penalty, together with a girl indicted on “imprecise and broadly formulated legal offences”, and 6 have been sentenced this month, Rehman stated.

The United Nations says greater than 300 folks have been killed to this point and 14,000 arrested in protests that started after the Sept. 16 demise in custody of 22-year-old Kurdish girl Mahsa Amini.