TEHRAN -- A top Iranian Sunni cleric has called for calm in the face of enemy plots to destabilize the country, saying that fomenting chaos and igniting people’s property are in clear contradiction to fighting for freedom and democracy.
Addressing worshippers, Mamousta Fayeq-Rostami, the Friday prayer leader of the Kurdish city of Sanandaj, said Islam opposes any form of bloodshed, and the killings and acts of sabotage seen during the nationwide riots are not acceptable according to the teachings of the divine religion.
“Democracy and freedom are important principles in Islam, but the interpretation of freedom and democracy is not anarchy,” he said. “Burning people’s property is not democracy, but rather, these actions are against the religion and are the opposite of democracy.”
Fayeq-Rostami also told worshippers that the enemy is using its media capacity to turn the people and government of Iran against each other in order to secure its own interests.
He recalled the Kurdish people’s heroic fight against the invading regime of Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, saying, “10,000 people were massacred in Kurdistan due to the chemical bombardment of our enemies, but there was no sight of the fake defenders of human rights at that time.”
He argued that no one is denying that there are problems in the country, but the problems need unity and struggle to be overcome, rather than bloodshed and destruction of public property.
“Children should not be orphaned in the name of protesting. The enemy seeks to create insecurity in our society and will hatch any conspiracy to achieve this goal,” the cleric said.
“Religious scholars and authorities should invite the people toward peace through their tact and logic, and they should provide the basis for solving the problems by creating a discourse,” he added.