Security forces blocked the Sanandaj-Dehgolan road in Kurdistan Province and arrested Sunni Kurdish cleric Barzan Maleki and several of his students on 27 January as they were travelling to Zahedan, Sistan and Baluchestan Province, to attend a religious gathering.
Maleki, the prayer leader and teacher at the Sheikheyn Grand Mosque in Sanandaj, and his students were detained for several hours before being forced to return to Sanandaj.
The Makki Mosque in Zahedan had recently announced the holding of the completion ceremony of Sahih al-Bukhari (a collection of hadiths in Sunni Islam) and the graduation ceremony for the students of Darol Oloum.
On 27 January, Maleki and his group planned to travel to Zahedan via Tehran. However, security forces intercepted them, blocked the Sanandaj-Dehgolan road, searched their mobile phones and prevented them from continuing their journey.
In response, the public relations office of the Sheikheyn Grand Mosque in Sanandaj issued a statement condemning the incident.
“Zahedan is the capital of the province of Sistan and Baluchestan and, like any other province in the country, falls within Iran’s geographical borders. Under Iranian law, no permission, visa or passport is required to travel there. The intervention of the security forces has no religious, customary or legal justification whatsoever”, the statement said.
The mosque also criticised the security forces’ search of mobile phones, saying: “According to the law, the contents of mobile phones are private. Seizing, inspecting or viewing it without the owner’s consent is completely irreligious, immoral and unlawful, and is a clear violation of personal privacy”.