Iran: Destruction Mosque Leads to Sunni MPs’ Demands
Although Iran is often referred to as a Shiite country, it actually has a sizable Sunni population. These Sunnis are represented in Parliament by other Sunni politicians. On Monday, these Sunni MPs responded in anger after it became clear that an important Sunni mosque in the country was demolished.
The MPs called on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad “to firmly give the order to prevent any recurrence of such actions which only help the enemy,” an Iranian newspaper reported.
The mosque destroyed was the Abu Hanifeh mosque and seminary in the city of Zabol in Sistan district near the Afghan border. They were destroyed at the end of August, but it took the MPs a while to find out about it because the state’s news agencies and other newspapers and channels did not report about it.
“We aim that through this letter the matter be pursued in order to find who was behind this action, since these kind of actions jeopardise social unity,” one of the MPs, Emad Hosseini, said.
In total there are 19 Sunni MPs in the Iranian Parliament. The total amount of seats is 290. Their political influence is,therefore, almost nil, which is why the government felt confident enough to destroy the mosque.
