Gruesome murder of a Sunni cleric and his son in Kermanshah

Iran Press News: Translation by Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi

According to reports from the Organization of the Unity of the Revolutionaries of Kurdistan, Professor Sheikh Hasan Rastegar, a Sunni cleric whose body was found in the courtyard of the Dowlatabad Mosque of Kermanshah (Province of Kurdistan), was an 80-year-old national-religious personality. He had for many years confronted the regime’s treachery in instigating division and dispute among the people of Kurdistan. Sheikh Rastegar’s efforts to this end enraged the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) and Mullah Zandi, the regime’s representative in Kermanshah. As a result he had come under pressure several times to close his mosque but he never yielded.

Rastegar and his son disappeared on June 2nd of this year. On Sunday, after the news of the recovery of Rastegar and his son’s bodies was announced, thousands of Kermanshah’s and the surrounding areas’ residents gathered in front of the Dowlatabad Mosque. The regime’s security forces quickly descended upon the area and surrounded the streets and alleys around the mosque in order to prevent anti-regime demonstrations.

After the recovery of the bodies, the regime’s authorities in a cover up attempt, mislead public opinion, using typical regime euphemism and rhetoric and claimed that the Sheikh and his son were in fact killed by the Sheikh’s two other sons in a family squabble over money.