Arrests of Sunni Muslims in Iran continues

HRANA News Agency – Four Sunni Muslims, Khaled Malaki, Abdol Karim Karimi, Ali and Abdol Hadi, were arrested by security forces in the city of Sanandaj last week.

According to the report of Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), the families of the men were reportedly not informed that they had been arrested until they visited the Ministry of Intelligence in Sanandaj after growing increasingly concerned about the men’s whereabouts.

The Ministry of Intelligence finally admitted that it had arrested the men, but refused to give the families any information about why the men had been detained.

One of the men, Khaled Malaki, is the brother of Taleb Malaki, a Sunni prisoner awaiting execution in Karaj’s notorious Rajai Shahr Prison.

Khaled Malaki had reportedly been previously threatened by the Ministry of Intelligence in Sanandaj after travelling to Tehran with several family members to investigate the current status of the prisoners’ cases.

The Ministry of Intelligence told the families that the consequence would be ‘very bad for both you and your children’, if they did not stop their work in relation to the prisoners.

Khaled Malaki had again visited the Supreme Court in Tehran last week before being arrested after noon prayers the day after he returned to Sanandaj.