Human Rights Activist News Agency (HRANA)- While moonlighting as a Shia orator, Shayan Mosleh — a soccer player for Tehran’s popular Persepolis club — gave a poetry reading that gained wide circulation on the internet, inciting responses from Sunni scholars, Parliamentary representatives, and the public who found it “insulting [to] Sunni sanctities.”
On September 28th, Mosleh’s name resounded in speeches from Sunni prayer imams (listed below) across the country, who condemned his commentary to the point of asking he be held accountable through the judiciary and state-run news agencies.
Friday Prayer Leaders in Iran who protested against Shayan Mosleh:
Molavi Mohammad Hossein Gargij
Azadshahr, Golestan province
Seyed Abdolbaes Ghatali
Bandar Abbas, Hormozgan province
Molavi Habib al-Rahman Motahari
Head of Ahnaf Khavaf Seminary, Khorasan Razavi Province
Molavi Abdolghafar Sheikh Jami
Kheyrabad village, Taybad County, Khorasan Razavi province
Molavi Khodabakhsh Eslamdoost
Ramin, Chabahar county, Sistan & Baluchestan province
Molavi Abdolsamad Damani
Head of Sunni seminary in Haghanieh, Iranshahr county, Sistan & Baluchestan province
Molavi Abdolrashid Shahbakhs
Zabol, Sistan & Baluchestan province
Molavi Gholam Heyday Farooghi
Birjand, South Khorasan province
Abdolkarim Javar
Gonbad Kavoos, Golestan province
Molavi Abdolahad Sarbazi
Anza, Sistan & Baluchestan province
Molavi Seyed Ahmad Abdollahi
Asadieh, South Khorasan province
Molavi Kheyrallah Nikhoy
Friday prayer speaker in Khaf, Razavi Khorasan province
Molavi Abdolhakim Seyedzade
Friday prayer speaker in Gosht, Sistan & Baluchestan province
Molavi Mohammad Tayeb
Iranshahr, Sistan & Baluchestan province
Molavi Chahani
Friday prayer speaker in Rameshk, Kerman province
Sheikh Mohammad Saleh Kheradnia
Damahi, Bandar Abbas
Sheikh Mostafa Imam
Head of Masjid Jameh in Bandar Abbas’s Khajeh Atta quarter.
While the Iranian constitution recognizes Sunni as a religious minority, it defends a specific school of Shiism as the country’s official religion. As a result, Sunnis are victim to systematic discrimination and persecution.
