This section is updated with news, updates, and articles that explore the Status of Minorities in Iran. Their life in Theocratic Iran has not been an easy ride.
This section has been set up separately to assist researchers and people who are interested in minorities as a page for direct access to such important topic.
Despite their nearly 2,000-year-old faith, Mandaeans are one of the least-known religious minority groups in Iran. (AP) By Maryam Dehkordi September 24, 2020 The Mandaeans are one of the least-known ethnoreligious groups in Iran, although their culture and belief system dates back almost 2,000 years. They are not recognized under the laws of the [...]
Up to 7,000 Yarsanis, some pictured here in 1993, were held in Al Tash of a total of around 55,000 Kurds. (IranWire) By Kambiz Ghafouri September 22, 2020 It was 1979, and the Islamic Revolution had been victorious. A new government was being formed whose mandate and laws would be dictated by Twelver Shia [...]
Religious minorities and political and civil rights activists in Iran were among those most heavily targeted, along with ethnic minorities, in particular Azerbaijanis. (Wired) By Ashkan Khosropour and Ebrahim Ramezani September 22, 2020 Hackers loyal to the Iranian regime have stepped up their routine targeting of opposition groups and groups supporting the rights and interests of Iranian ethnic and [...]
The study by NGO Six Colors found more than 60 percent of LBGTQ people in Iran had been abused by their closest relatives. (Supplied) By Mahrokh Gholamhosseinpour September 18, 2020 The Iranian transgender information portal Six Colours has recently published a report entitled "Hidden Wounds: A Study on Violence Against Sexual and Gender Minorities [...]
Iranian Kurdish political prisoner Heydar Ghorbani whose death sentence was finalized by Iran's Supreme Court on September 5, 2020. (VOA) September 17, 2020 An Iranian lawyer says his minority Kurdish client is at imminent risk of being Iran’s next political prisoner to be executed following the Saturday execution of an Iranian wrestler who [...]
A police officer standing in a stadium before a public execution in Fars province, Sept 23, 2016. (Supplied) September 15, 2020 Branch 38 of the Iranian Supreme Court for a third time upheld the death sentences against seven Sunni political prisoners on September 10. The Sunni inmates, Farhad Salimi, Qassem Absteh, Davood Abdollahi, [...]
People walk past a picture of the late leader of the Islamic Revolution, Khomeini (right), and supreme leader, Ali Khamenei in Tehran. (Reuters) By Misha Ketchell September 14, 2020 Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution was a defining event that changed how we think about the relationship between religion and modernity. Ayatollah Khomeini’s mass mobilisation of [...]
The Bahai citizens were arrested during an occasion to mark the 200th birthday of Baháʼu’lláh, the founder of the Baha’i faith. (Istock) September 11, 2020 A court in Iran sentenced eight Bahai citizens to a total of 11 years and 3 months of prison in an eastern province. According to the Human Rights News Agency, the eight [...]
Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, right, arrives at a graduation ceremony of the IRGC officers, May 20, 2015. (AP) By Brenda Shaffer September 01, 2020 The twentieth century was not kind to multiethnic empires. During that time, most of the world’s population transitioned from subjects to citizens. And, in most of the empires where a [...]
According to Iranian law, evangelism, missionary work, and converting to Christianity can be a crime meriting a sentence of more than 10 years imprisonment. (Reuters) August 29, 2020 Iranian security forces arrested two Christian converts in northwestern and southwestern cities in Iran. The two men were taken to unknown locations. According to the Human [...]
