Southeastern Iran's Sunni Prayer Hall Demolished

Security forces have destroyed the last remaining Sunni prayer hall in Bam, Kerman province, according to rights group Haalvsh, amid worsening oppression of minorities by Iran's Shia government.

On Monday, Haalvsh published a video showing the hall's ruins and reported that the prayer hall was destroyed at dawn on Saturday by the military along with municipality officials.

“This was a shed constructed to serve as a prayer hall for Sunni citizens because they did not have permission to construct a mosque in the city,” the report said, Sunnis not offered the same privileges as the ruling Shia Muslims in Iran. “In order not to offend, no loudspeakers were used during prayer time.”

Sunnis constitute at least 10 percent of Iran's 88 million population, the majority of them economically and politically disenfranchised and concentrated in border regions stretching from Sistan-Baluchestan in the southeast to Kurdistan in the northwest.

Iran's leading Sunni cleric, Mowlavi Abdolhamid, an outspoken critic of the Iranian government, has frequently accused the government of persecuting religious minorities which also include Baha'i and Zoroastrian communities. 

Since September 2022, Iran's southeastern Sunni region has been under strict security control as protests persist after the day now known as Bloody Friday. Security forces opened fire on protesters in Zahedan in Sistan-Baluchestan, killing nearly 90 people, including women and children. Since then, local Sunnis have protested every week after Friday prayers calling for justice as the government fails to be held to account.