Tehran, Iran - An Iranian court has sentenced 52 members of the Sufi Muslim sect to jail on various charges including disturbing the public, a newspaper said on Thursday.
The Islamic Republic largely tolerates Sufi Muslims whose belief in a mystical path to God through dance and music does not go down well with some of Iran’s most senior religious figures.
Some 1,000 Sufis were arrested in February during clashes which broke out after authorities ordered the closure of a house of worship used by mystical Sufis in the central seminary city of Qom. Most of them were later released.
“Each of them has been sentenced to a one year jail term, some fines and 74 lashes,” Farshid Yadollahi, their lawyer, was quoted by the Kargozaran newspaper as saying. The court in the city of Qom found the Sufis, who were free on bail, guilty of a range of crimes including disobeying police orders and disturbing public order, said the lawyer, who also has been sentenced by the court.
“I and another lawyer of this case have also been sentenced to a one year jail term and 74 lashes,” Yadollahi said. “We have also been banned from practicing law for five years.”
The convicted are entitled to appeal their verdicts within 20 days.
Ayatollah Hossein Nouri-Hamedani in September called for a clampdown on Sufi groups in the holy city of Qom, which he called a “danger to Islam”.
Also, Iranian armed forces arrested four Sunni Muslim rebels near its borders with Pakistan and Afghanistan and three Kurdish rebels close to the frontier with Iraq, a government newspaper said on Thursday.
The rebels from Sistan-Baluchestan, an unruly area and major thoroughfare for drugs smuggled from Pakistan and Afghanistan, were identified as members of Jundallah. The Iran newspaper also said a “large weapons cache” was found. Meanwhile, Iranian authorities have arrested a liberal philosopher for espionage, official media reported.
Sohrab Soleimani, a Tehran prison department official, confirmed the arrest of Ramin Jahanbegloo, the official IRAN Persian daily reported.
It also quoted an unidentified official as saying that Jahanbegloo was arrested a few days ago on charges of espionage and violating security measures. It did not elaborate.
Calls to authorities were not immediately returned on Thursday, the beginning of the weekend in Iran. Jahanbegloo, 46, studied at the Sorbonne University, Paris. He headed the office of contemporary studies at the private Cultural Research Bureau. His achievements include conducting post doctorate research at Harvard University and writing some twenty books in English, French and Farsi. Jahanbegloo has also interviewed several global figures, including the Dalai Lama this year and American intellectual Noam Chomsky in 2002.