A Shia cleric and Khamenei loyalist has been shot dead by masked gunmen in a majority-Sunni city in Iran, sparking fears of sectarian conflict.
Sajjad Shahraki – the imam of Moulay Motaqian Mosque in Zahedan, Sistan and Baluchestan Province – was killed by unknown assailants on 3rd November.
The gunmen – who were travelling in two cars – shot the imam in the head and chest, according to pro-regime media reports.
The province’s police chief, Ahmad Taheri, said efforts were underway to identify and seize those responsible.
The assassination may have been carried out in response to a brutal crackdown by security forces in the restive city after Friday prayers on 30th September.
The crackdown is believed by anti-regime media and human rights groups to have resulted in at least 66 and up to 92 deaths, among them 12 children.
It is believed to have been the deadliest single incident of the Mahsa Amini protests – which began on 16th September – to date.
Zahedan residents had also been angered by the alleged rape of a 15-year-old girl by a policeman in Chabahar and had taken to the streets to voice their anger.
Iran is a majority-Shia country and a Shia theocracy.
Iranian ethnic and religious minorities are believed by many human rights groups to disproportionately suffer from state repression.
Mahsa Amini – whose death at the hands of morality police in September sparked the current wave of protests – was Kurdish.
The Kurds are Iran’s third-largest ethnic group, after Persians and Azeris.
The two major religions among Kurds in Iran are Islam – both Sunni and Shia – and Yarsanism.
The Baloch are the largest ethnic group in Sistan and Baluchestan. A majority adhere to Sunni Islam.
The Shia-Sunni schism can be traced back to a dispute over the succession to the prophet Muhammad as a caliph of the Islamic community.
After his death in 632, one group – the Sunnis – believed his successor should be Abu Bakr, but another – the Shias – believed it should have been Ali.
In recent years, Sunni-Shia relations have been increasingly marked by conflict.
