Iranian Sunni protesters killed in clashes with security forces

Iranian Nobel peace prize winner Shirin Ebadi writes to UN human rights commissioner over treatment of Sunni minority 

Saeed Kamali Dehghan, The Guardian, April 18, 2011

Nobel peace prize laureate Shirin Ebadi wrote to the UN commissioner for human rights over the treatment of the Sunni minority in Iran. Photograph: Caren Firouz /Reuters

 

At least 12 people who are believed to belong to Iran‘s Sunni minority have been killed in clashes between security forces and anti-government protesters in the south-western city of Ahwaz since Friday.

On Monday, Shirin Ebadi, Iran’s Nobel peace prize laureate, wrote a letter to the UN high commissioner for human rights, in which she said “more than 12″ Sunni protesters had been killed in Iran’s oil-rich province of Khuzestan, home to many Arabic-speaking Sunni Iranians.

According to Ebadi, hundreds of people in Ahwaz had gathered for a peaceful demonstration against the Islamic regime’s discrimination towards its Sunni minority.

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