Incessant Clashes with Members of “Maktabe Quran”

A new wave of pressure is mounting on Iranian Sunnis as the ruling council of Maktabe Quran organization, a Kurdish Sunni group, announced through a statement that a number of its members had been summoned and interrogated by the security apparatus of the Islamic republic of Iran. This follows the announcement a few weeks earlier that three medical students closely associated with the group had been denied the right to continue their higher education and were denied their completion academic degrees.

These pressure tactics began a few months ago when a number of Sunni teachers closely linked to the Maktabe Quran group were formally barred from the teaching profession. The Maktabe Quran ruling council has announced that while the activities of this group are non-political, Iran’s security agencies have imposed restrictions on its supporters at their work place and in continuing their education because of the religious beliefs of its supporters.

Summons, Ban on Professions and Pursuit of Education

The central council of Maktabe Quran announced last week that three of its members, Hossein Alai, Foad Mardookh and Abubakr Amini, had been summoned by Iran’s security agency and interrogated during the last week of November this year for activities related to Maktabe Quran and for notifying people of the pressures exerted on other members of the group.

Earlier this year with the beginning of Iran’s school year in September, contacts affiliated with Maktabe Quran had announced that 17 teachers in the Kurdish towns of Saqqez, Marivan, Baneh, Ghorveh and Moochesh had been banned from continuing to teach. According to the group’s website, “Ministry of education teachers in the above-mentioned towns had said that security officials, who are in fact representatives of Iran’s ministry of intelligence, had verbally told them that they had taken this measure.

According to published reports, most of the 17 teachers had a record of more than 20 years of teaching.

Ministry of education officials announced the teaching ban for the 17 teachers to be related to “the changes in the teaching positions to the executive deputy position,” (i.e., an administrative position).

Following that announcement, more teachers in other Kurdish towns, including Divandare, were banned from continuing their teaching profession.

No details have been announced about the specific reasons for the transfer of these teachers but Ahmad Ismaili, the spokesperson for the Markaze Sonnat (Sunni Center) told the German radio station Deutsche Welle that these teachers had been banned from teaching because of their membership in Maktabe Quran group.

In another news report, officials from the Kurdish medical universities and those in the town of Hamedan had banned three medical students from continuing their specialization education in the town of Sanandaj and have even stopped the university from presenting the students with their education degrees.

Iranian human rights activists have named the three medical students to be Dr Sorveh Heydari, Dr Leyla Borna and Dr Somaye Hooshiyari. According to these reports, the three doctors were denied their final degrees because they had dedicated their degrees to the founder of Maktabe Quran organization.

Summons for Unlawful Activities

Iranian Sunnis who are constitutionally recognized in Iran as a minority group have been facing continues restrictions in recent years. But this is the first time they are confronted by officials and institutionally by official agencies of the Islamic republic of Iran as a group and specifically for their religious activities. These restrictions on them come despite the specific announcement by Maktabe Quran that the activities of the organizational are “strictly intellectual and completely non-political.”

Maktabe Quran comprised initially of a series of religious schools which had been created by Kurdish Sunnis prior to the 1979 Islamic revolution by alameh Ahmad Moftizadeh. The schools initially appeared in 1977 in the towns of Sanandaj and Marivan as Quran schools. Later Maktabe Quran changed its name and turned to religious and at times a political activities in Kurdistan.

Ahmad Moftizadeh, the leader of the religious-political group had been arrested by officials in the Islamic republic in 1982 in Tehran. He died six months after serving an 11-year prison sentence in 1992.

The group’s principal demand has been its call for amending the current constitution and revival of the ruling council in Islamic societies and in Iran. After Moftizadeh’s death, the group was split into two factions. Hassan Amini, who had been appointed by Moftizadeh as the supreme religious judge in Kurdistan in the early days of the 1979 revolution, is currently the leader of one branch of the group while Mohammad Zjian Moftizadeh, the elder Moftizadeh’s son, is the leader of the other group. Neither of the factions of Maktabe Quran has been given a legal formal licence to engage in religious activities.

Last October/November Mohammad Zjian Moftizadeh was summoned by Iran’s ministry of intelligence in Sanandaj for his activities related to Maktabe Quran . He was interrogated in connection with not holding a legal permit to engage in religious activities and holding religious classes at his home.

According to a statement issued by Maktabe Quran , Zjian had said during his interrogations, “Since we were active in purely religious activities and did not get involved in political issues, we did not only not need any licence but God has instructed us in the Quran to spread His religion and invite people to join Him.”

Even after the death of the elder Moftizadeh, the supporters of Maktabe Quran have been harassed by the security establishment of the Islamic republic and some of its members are occasionally arrested and detained.

For example in 2007, a large number of the group’s members which some have said to be around a hundred, were arrested by Saqqez security forces while they were engaged in prayers and all were sent to prison. They were subsequently released after a few days.

In a more recent incident earlier this year, Abdollah Abbasi, an official in Hassan Amini’s office, the head of Maktabe Quran of Kurdistan, was arrested by security agents.

Judiciary officials have not officially mentioned the reasons for the arrest of the members of this group.