Human rights abuse in Iran

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Author: Ali Hassan

Started: August 13, 2005, 4:58:44 pm

Target: Syed Ali Khameni'e

Category: Civil & Human Rights

Supporters:

168

Goal:

1,000

Goal Progress:

Status

Active

"Iranian security services brutally attacked and arrested a group of mourners in the shrine city of Qum, who were visiting the grave of the late pro-democracy opposition cleric Ayatullah Muhammad Husayn Shirazi. Amongst the detained were several daughters, daughters-in-law, and grand-daughters of Ayatullah Shirazi. The women were attacked with cables and sticks, and brutally beaten. A number of clergymen were also detained, who attempted to intervene when the women were attacked.
This incident is only the latest in a long campaign of harassment, intimidation, and violence directed towards Ayatullah Shirazi, who was an outspoken critic of Iran’s theocratic regime. He held a position of great authority within the Shi’ite Muslim world, and was a highly prolific author; one of his studies on Islamic law was almost 150 volumes long. He was an advocate of consultative government based on democratic principles, and argued strongly that a democratic system was the only system possible allowed in Shi’ite Islam. His opposition to Khumayni’s tyranny, especially Khumayni’s refusal to enter into a cease-fire during the Iran-Iraq war, earned him the ire of the Iranian authorities, and eventually led to a two-decade long house arrest. When he died in 2001, he asked in his last will and testament to be buried in his house in Qum. On December 17th, 2001 a funeral procession was held in his honour, which was immediately attacked by Iranian police. The police seized Ayatullah Shirazi’s body from the funeral hearse, and buried it in an anonymous grave within Qum’s central shrine. Iranian authorities had feared that this scholar’s grave would become a kind of shrine, and a centre of further opposition to their theocratic system. Sixteen people were injured and two hundred were hospitalized."

We urge all Muslim to sign this petition in order that we receive an official apology from the Iranin authorities.