People in several cities across Iran’s Sistan-Baluchestan province held antiregime rallies Friday but this week they had a new specific demand: freedom of a senior Sunni leader. 

Mowlavi Fat’hi-Mohammad Naghshbandi, the Friday prayer leader of the city of Rask, was arrested earlier in the week, leading to several days of demonstrations and a heavy security presence by regime agents.

According to the advocacy group Haalvsh, which reports on issues affecting the Baluch people in the predominantly Sunni province, intelligence agents and Revolutionary Guard in collaboration with officials from the Chabahar Oil Company, asked the Sunni leader over the phone to come to Chabahar to resolve problems regarding his fuel rationing. After Naghshbandi set off for Chabahar along with his son and several others, they were pursued by security forces and subsequently detained along the way.

The detention of Mowlavi Naghshbandi has struck a chord with the local population, prompting them to take to the streets in a display of unity and solidarity. He is accused of "disturbing public opinion through false speeches, slander, and defamation against the Islamic Republic, acting against national security, and illegal occupation of national lands."

The intensified security atmosphere did not stop the weekly protests in the province, which were held regularly in the past 47 weeks, since Bloody Friday on September 30, 2022, when security forces killed more than 80 people, including women and children.

This Friday, in addition to the provincial capital Zahedan, people held demonstrations in several other cities such as Rask, Khash, Sarbaaz, Dashtiari, Sib and Suran, demanding the release of Naghshbandi as well as other political prisoners. Local media reported that protesters in various cities blocked key routes by setting car tires ablaze in a dramatic display of dissent. 

The heightened protests signify mounting frustration in the region, which has long experienced economic and social hardships as well as discrimination agonist its Baluch minority.

Meanwhile, Iran’s top Sunni cleric Mowlavi Abdolhamid delivered another fiery sermon Friday, condemning the regime for taking advantage of people’s religious beliefs for its own political gains, implicitly referring to the regime-sponsored pilgrimage to Iraq for the Shiite ceremony of Arbaeen. 

Without mentioning the Arbaeen, the outspoken Sunni cleric of Zahedan decried the regime for allocation of huge resources for the pilgrimage. “In a country where people are suffering so much... spending billions on one religious ceremony from the nation's treasury and people’s pocket is not right."

"In a country where people can't find medicine and are hungry, is it fair to spend so much on a religious ceremony?" he asked. 

Arbaeen (literally meaning fortieth) is a Shiite religious observance that occurs forty days after the Day of Ashura, when according to religious legend Husayn (Hussain) ibn Ali, the grandson of Prophet Muhammad was killed on the 10th day of the month of Muharram in 680 AD. The Islamic Republic regime views the event as a show of influence in the region, encouraging high participation via numerous perks, including providing free medical services and rest stops along the way, free internet on the road and inside Iraq, offering interest-free loans and granting 200,000 Iraqi dinars ($153) to pilgrim as well as special passports with less bureaucratic requirements. The ration of cheap foreign currency – which used to be dollars or euros until this year – will be paid from Iran's frozen funds in Iraq, about to be released as part of a prisoner swap deal with the United States.