2020-09-28
The Yarsan faith, also known as Ahl-e Haqq (People of the Truth) is estimated to have about two million followers in Iran, most of whom live in the western, predominantly Kurdish provinces and especially in Kermanshah. This religion also has some followers in Turkey and Iraq. This religious minority is not recognized by the Iranian Constitution, and the members of this community have faced continuous discrimination and persecution in the country to such an extent that many have been forced to deny their faith in public. The members of traditional Yarsan communities are becoming more visible in the Western countries, such as Sweden, both as diaspora groups and in academia. […]
2020-09-28
Balochis have faced government discrimination, both as Sunni religious practitioners and as an ethnic minority group, according to several international reports. According to Baloch activists, the Iranian State controls and imposes many restrictions on their religious activities, resulting in refused national identity cards for their children. Many Baloch people are harassed or beaten, and many are forced to leave their homes and find another place to live. Nasser Boladai, spokesperson for the Balochistan People’s Party, talks with MvoicesIran about the challenges of the two million-strong Baloch minority, who live in the undeveloped area near the border with Pakistan and Afghanistan. For years, thousands of Baloch children were deprived of their […]
2020-09-28
Fred Petrossian The fate of Iran’s Christians, as the Islamic Republic turns 40 years old, could perhaps be viewed through the lens of Forrest Gump’s famous quote: “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.” The Christian community of just a few thousand Muslim converts in 1979, after four decades of state-run repression, has grown to several hundred thousand, or even one million according to some sources. Churches have been closed down, the Bible in Persian banned, Christian leaders murdered, and hundreds of women and men sent to jail and forced into exile. This has been part of the Islamic Republic’s policy over the […]
