Celebration for the day of dervishes 2014 in London

MehrIran - In continuation of a series of street actions around Europe the Internatioal Organisation to preserve Human Rights in Iran (IOPHRI) delivered another protest in London on Sunday, 23rd of February. The night before this street action the Day of Dervishes was celebrated with Sufi music and Rumi poetry and stories from his Mathnavi at St John's Wood in London's Kensington.

Celebration of the "Day of Dervishes" at London's St Johns Woods church

Several activists gathered on Trafalgar Square just next to the Canadian Embassy and the renown Museum of History. Each one of them was wearing a mask of Mir Hossein Moussavi or Zahra Rahnavard or Mehdi Karoubi and demanded freedom for the opposition leaders who are under house arrest for three years now without any legal case. Further the activists demanded as well freedom for all political prisoners in Iran. The list of political prisoners that were arrested in the wake of the protests against the fake results of the 2009 presidential elections is still long, although the regime released some well known personalities like Nasrin Sotoudeh during president Rohanis charme campaign to persuade western countries that Iran might be moderate now.

Finally the protestors of the IOPHRI demanded as well freedom for the dervishes who suffer from heavy persecutions, slander and torture in different regions of Iran. Similar to Baha'i they are regarded as spies of the West inside of Iran as dervishes favour values like tolerance, peace and love opposing governmental interpretation of Islam as the world vision of compulsion, force and absolute obedience.

This last street action was connected to the celebration of the Day of Dervishes on Saturday night, 22nd of February at St John's Wood in London. This day commemorates the march of more than 60.000 dervishes on the 22nd of February 2009 in front of the Parliament in Teheran in order to break the atmosphere of silence and fear in the country and to protest against the destruction of dervish gathering places and the unlawful harassment and slander of dervishes by regime forces.

To commemorate this day each year since 2009 dervishes around the world gather in different cities and play music or recite mystical poetries. In London several musical groups including Hamdel and the Pearl Ensemble played mystical music, recited Rumi poetries and told inspiring stories from Rumi's Mathnavi. The Kensington church hosted a deeply joyful and inspiring event for the grateful guests.

For the first time a group of dervishes tried to celebrate dervish day in Teheran but was refused permission.

IOPHRI activists started the new series of protests in Stuttgart, Germany, in November 2013 after protests in favour of Mrs Sotoudeh were accomplished with a positive result and she was finally released from prison following world wide protests for her freedom. Activists of IOPHRI contributed to these claims for the freedom of Mrs Sotoudeh with flashmobs and various street actions in different european cities.

The new series of protests for the freedom of all political prisoners in Iran highlighting the cases of Mr Moussavi, Mrs Rahnavard and Mr Karoubi will continue in Germany.

In an interview with Radio Farda during the London street action an activist stressed that IOPHRI will continue the protests till the opposition leaders will be released.