In the city of Bukan, a mosque is not just a place of worship; it is the beating heart of the community. For years, Mamostā Mullah Osman Zakeri, the trusted Imam of the Aliabad Grand Mosque, served as a pillar of support for his congregation. But today, the pulpit is occupied by a state loyalist, the mosque’s charity is frozen, and Mamostā Zakeri has been stripped of his clerical robes.
His alleged crime? Silence.
In a stark display of how the Islamic Republic weaponizes religion to crush dissent, Mamostā Zakeri was abruptly dismissed and “defrocked” in recent weeks. There was no trial, no legal defense, and no independent verdict. Instead, security agencies engineered a case against him through a shadow committee. The singular accusation used to destroy his livelihood and social standing was his refusal to preach about or mourn the death of Ali Khamenei during a recent 40-day period.
This arbitrary purge exposes a regime that demands absolute ideological obedience, punishing anyone who refuses to turn their pulpit into a state megaphone. But the victims of this retaliation extend far beyond the Imam himself.
Mamostā Zakeri was a lifeline for the most vulnerable.
Through a grassroots charity fund he established at the mosque, he provided essential, daily support to roughly 60 impoverished families in Bukan and surrounding villages. When the state ousted him and installed a loyalist cleric, Mullah Ayoub Razm, they didn’t just seize the mosque they hijacked the charity.
Today, those 60 desperate families have been entirely cut off from the aid they relied on to survive. What began as an act of political retribution has devolved into an economic assault on the region’s poorest citizens.
The people of Bukan, however, have not remained silent. In a powerful display of civil disobedience, residents completely boycotted the new, state-appointed Imam’s introductory ceremony, leaving the mosque empty save for a handful of government supporters.
Beyond the blatant violations of freedom of expression and due process, this crackdown is a direct assault on Kurdish cultural and religious identity. In the Kurdish Shafi’i Sunni tradition, a cleric’s authority does not come from a centralized, state-run hierarchy. A “Mamostā” earns his robes through years of scholarly dedication and the deep, organic trust of his community.
By using Shiite-style “clerical courts” to defrock a Sunni Imam, the state is imposing an alien, politicized structure on Kurdistan to silence independent religious leaders. It is not just illegal under international human rights law; it is entirely illegitimate under the region’s own religious traditions.
The Hana Human Rights Organization vehemently condemns this vindictive campaign. We demand the immediate reinstatement of Mamostā Zakeri and an end to the regime’s suffocating interference in Kurdish places of worship. More urgently, we call for the immediate return of the mosque’s charitable fund to community stewardship. No family should be starved of basic aid simply because their local leader refused to compromise his conscience.