Iranian cleric accuses regime of ‘organized massacre’

Top Sunni Muslim cleric in Iran blasts the government’s crackdown on anti-regime protests, calling the killings an “organized massacre.”

By World Israel News Staff

A prominent Iranian Muslim cleric has publicly condemned Tehran’s violent crackdown against anti-regime protesters, calling the killings an “organized massacre.”

On Sunday, Mowlavi Abdolhamid Ismaeelzahi, a prominent imam in the southeastern Iranian city of Zahedan, spoke out in response to video footage circulated on social media showing Iranian pro-regime forces using deadly force against demonstrators across the country.

In comments which were publicized via his official X account, the Sunni Muslim cleric condemned the killings as a “brutal slaughter” and an “organized massacre.”

He lamented that the revelations now coming out regarding the scope of the killing had been suppressed for weeks by the government’s internet blackout.

“Despite the severe internet restrictions, scenes of the heartrending and brutal slaughter of protesters in various provinces are gradually being published by the media, a matter that speaks to an organized massacre and whose further dimensions are gradually being revealed,” Abdolhamid Ismaeelzahi said.

“This tragedy has created a deep and irreparable rift between the people of Iran and the regime.”

Abdolhamid Ismaeelzahi is widely recognized as Iran’s top Sunni religious authority, and also represents Iran’s Baluch minority in the eastern part of the country.

Despite being a member of both a religious minority group and an ethnic minority population, Abdolhamid Ismaeelzahi has achieved recognition and won support among many Iranian Shi’ites, in part for his long-standing criticism of the Islamic Republic’s policies.

He has advocated for religious freedom, an end to discrimination along confessional lines, and has sharply criticized the regime’s use of violent force in suppressing previous protest movements, including the demonstrations sparked in 2022 by the death of Mahsa Amini.

Iranian hard-liners, including the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, have in the past warned him not to defy the regime.