Equality at home before preaching unity outside, Iranian Sunnis tell Khamenei

With the inauguration of the first Islamic Awakening Conference in Tehran and with Ayatollah Khamenei demanding the unity of Muslim countries, Iranian Sunni activists issued a statement calling upon the supreme leader to practice what he preaches and grant minorities their full rights.

“I ask you to put aside sectarian, national, ethnic, and tribal disputes and to unite because unity is the key to success,” said Khamenei Saturday in the conference’s opening speech.

In the speech, Khamenei stressed the importance of not falling prey to religious strife, which he labeled as “the devil’s work.”

Sunnis in Iran underlined in a statement they wrote the contradiction of calling for unity outside while not dealing with sectarian discrimination inside Iran.

“We ask you to start applying this principle of fraternity and equality in Iran first before wanting to see it happen in other countries,” wrote Sunni activists in the message they wrote Saturday to the supreme leader and of which Al Arabiya obtained a copy.

Iranian Sunnis said in their statement that they did not believe that the Muslim world, the majority of which are Sunnis, would accept to have as their role model a country that prevents its Sunni minority from building mosques and praying in the capital.

They also pointed out to the violent repression to which Sunnis in Iran are subjected whenever they object to the regime’s policies.

“The legitimate demands of Sunnis in Iran ─ which revolve around rejecting violence, abolishing discrimination, and calling for equality ─ are always met with a campaign of arrests and detentions.”

The statement pointed out that Khamenei did not respond to requests by representatives of the Sunni community to meet him to discuss ways of dealing with the problem.

“Three hundred Sunni scholars asked to meet the supreme leader but he never got back to them.”

They added that pressure has lately been mounting on Iranian Sunnis on several fronts other than restrictions on prayers and construction of mosques.

“The government is working on seizing Sunni religious schools and has started banning several Sunni scholars from traveling and sometimes arresting them for no good reason.”

They cited the example of leading Sunni cleric Abdulhamid Esmail-Zehi who is banned from traveling not only outside Iran, but also outside the southeastern province of Sistan and Baluchestan where he lives.

The arrest of Esmail-Zehi’s son-in-law Hafez Esmail Molla-Zehi on charges of espionage is another example of the constant clampdown on Sunnis in Iran.

“Sunnis are suffering a lot and are losing hope, but they are silent about it because they want to maintain the unity of the country,” the statement concluded.

(This article was translated from Arabic by Sonia Farid.)