A relative of the leader of the Sunni minority in Iran, Molavi Abdol Hamid, was arrested Monday evening January 30 in the Southeast, announced an official media, against the backdrop of the protest movement in the country.
Abdolmajid Moradzehi, a close adviser to Molavi Abdol Hamid, was arrested in Zahedan, capital of Sistan-Baluchistan, a province populated by a large Sunni minority, according to the Irna agency.
Manipulation of "public opinion"
The city of Zahedan was the scene of several days of violence sparked on September 30 during protests against the alleged rape of a teenage girl blamed on a police officer.
Several members of the security forces are among the dozens of people killed in the violence.
Abdolmajid Moradzehi was accused of having "
manipulated public opinion
" and "
communicated on several occasions with foreign people and media
", Irna said.
Sistan-Balochistan is one of the poorest regions in Iran and is home to the Baloch minority, who mostly adhere to Sunni Islam and not the dominant Shiism in the country.
Read alsoIran: the mullahs stifle protest
Following the violence in late September, the authorities sacked two senior security officials in the region, including the Zahedan police chief, after the publication of an official investigation alleging "
negligence on the part of some officers
” leading to the death of “
innocent
” civilians.
The incidents came as the country is rocked by a protest movement sparked by the September 16 death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd, three days after her arrest in Tehran by the morality police.
