At Least 22 Citizens Arrested in Oshnavieh and Rask

The Islamic Republic's agents have arrested at least 22 citizens in the two counties of Oshnavieh and Rask. According to human rights sources, those arrested include at least 14 residents of Oshnavieh and surrounding villages in West Azerbaijan Province, as well as 8 students from a Sunni religious seminary in the village of Pashamg in Rask County, Sistan and Baluchestan Province. The Baloch Activists Campaign announced on Saturday, May 15, that at least 8 students from the 'Anwar al-Haramain' religious school in the village of Pashamg, Jask County, were arrested during a military raid. According to the report, government agents also confiscated the mobile phones of the family of Molavi Fazl-ur-Rehman Kouhi, the director of this religious school and the Sunni Friday prayer leader of Pashamg. Images released by the Baloch Activists Campaign show broken doors and windows during the raid on the 'Anwar al-Haramain' religious school. Simultaneously, the Quds Ground of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps announced in a statement that its forces, in a joint operation with the Intelligence Department of Sistan and Baluchestan, arrested several individuals identified as 'supporting and supplying agents' in the recent attacks by the armed group 'Jaish al-Adl' on police and IRGC centers at the religious school 'Anwar al-Haramain' in the village of Pashamg. Reports indicate that during the attack by 'Jaish al-Adl' on the IRGC command center in Rask and a police station in Chabahar in April of this year, several forces from both sides of the conflict were killed, including at least 11 border guards, police, IRGC, and Basij members. The group Jundallah and all its new names, including Jaish al-Adl, are listed as terrorist organizations by the United States. The 'Anwar al-Haramain' religious school condemned the 'brazen operation of the security forces' in a statement and addressed the Islamic Republic officials, saying: 'If you had any suspicion about one of the students, the suspected individual would have been handed over to you in coordination with the school officials. Those with a clean record have nothing to fear from scrutiny!' On the other hand, the Kurdistan Human Rights Network reported that between May 1 and May 3, at least 14 Kurdish citizens were arrested in Oshnavieh and surrounding villages. The names of those arrested include Youssef Haji Khush, Rahim Rafati, Fakhr al-Din Modarresi, Omid Rashidpak, Arman Ebrahimi, Salah Qazi, Hosam al-Din Mahmoudi, Moloud Rousta, Hassan Rasouli, Jafar Rasouli, Mohammad Soltanpour, Ghafour Sheikh Mohammadi, Hadi Laveh, and Ako Ebrahimi. According to the Kurdistan Human Rights Network, most of these individuals were arrested by the IRGC Intelligence Organization in connection with the celebration of this year's Nowruz. The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom recommended in its latest report to the U.S. government that the Iranian government be classified as a 'country of particular concern' due to its 'systematic, ongoing, and egregious' violations of religious freedoms. The UN fact-finding committee also reported on March 9, 2023, that the Iranian government 'targets ethnic minorities and Sunni Muslim minorities, imposing restrictions on their cultural and political activities through arbitrary arrests and vague security charges.'