Kurdish Sunni cleric Saber Khoda-Moradi has been sentenced to prison in Iran, while fellow cleric Ayat Gholami has been arrested, in a renewed wave of crackdowns by the Special Clerical Courts, the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) reported.

The Special Clerical Court in Hamadan recently sentenced Saber Khoda-Moradi, the Friday prayer leader of the town of Qawakh in Saqqez, Kurdistan Province, to 22 months in prison.

He had already received a 15-month prison sentence in July 2024 on charges of “propaganda against the state”.

Khoda-Moradi was also summoned by the same court in May 2023 for supporting the anti-government Jin, Jiyan, Azadi (Woman, Life, Freedom) uprising, and was sentenced to 74 lashes and seven-and-a-half months’ imprisonment suspended for three years on charges of “disturbing public opinion” and “propaganda against the state”.

In a parallel development, Ayat Gholami, former imam of the Mohammad al-Mostafa Mosque in Kermanshah and a religious instructor, was arrested on 23 April 2025, after being summoned by the Special Clerical Court in Kermanshah, and was taken to an undisclosed location.

Gholami had previously been summoned and interrogated by the Security Office for Clerical Affairs in Kermanshah on 9 July 2024, and was eventually banned from leading prayers or engaging in any religious activity at the mosque.

Over the past two years, he has been threatened by the security services for his support of statements condemning the death sentence of Mohammad Khezrnezhad and the killing of kolbars and soukhtbars (fuel carriers).

The arrests come amid a broader wave of pressure targeting Kurdish Sunni religious leaders. On 21 April 2025, Mamosta Loqman Amini, the Friday prayer leader of the Chahar Yar-e Nabi mosque and a religious teacher in Sanandaj, Kurdistan Province, was also arrested and taken to an undisclosed location after being summoned by the Special Clerical Court in Hamadan.