Iran: Dervishes protest continue, 800 arrested

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he Iranian regime's suppressive forces and intelligence agents attacked, injured and arrested many members of dervishes community as they assembled to protest outside Tehran's Prosecutor’s Office for the second day.

Some 800 people, including many children and elderly, have been arrested during Saturday and Sunday. A number of the arrestees were transferred to notorious Evin Prison.

The attacking forces and intelligence agents battered the dervishes using electric batons and humiliated them.

Following yesterday’s arrests, a large number of dervishes from various cities travelled to Tehran to express their solidarity with those arrested. They assembled near the regime’s Prosecutor’s Office in Behesht Street since this morning, September 21.

The Intelligence agents and anti-riot guardsmen have cordoned off hundreds of them in Behesht Street in order to prevent the protest gathering of Gonabadi dervishes for the second straight day. The shouting by the protestors, dozens of whom women, is heard from this area.

These gatherings are in protest to the oppression of dervishes and in particular in solidarity with nine imprisoned dervishes who have gone on hunger strike in the Tehran Evin Prison and in Shiraz Nezam Prison. The protestors are demanding to meet with their imprisoned relatives who are in critical condition after three weeks of hunger strike.

A number of political prisoners in Gohardasht Prison issued a communiqué and expressed their solidarity with the demands of the imprisoned dervishes and their families. They expressed their concern for the widespread arrest of the dervishes and wrote: “What crime have they committed? ...Is moderation and heroic flexibility just for the forces of foreign powers, but the share of Iranian people and citizens, and even the dervishes who are Muslims and believe in 12 Shia Imams only the gallows, torture, oppression and prison?”