Iran Kurdish MPs demand construction of Sunni mosque in Tehran 

 TEHRAN, July 10 (AFP) -  Two members of Iran's reform-majority parliament and
 representatives of the Kurdish minority have called on the nation's supreme leader to authorise
 the construction of a mosque exclusively for the Sunni Kurdish community in Tehran.

 "We call on our supreme leader (Ayatollah Ali Khamenei) to authorise the construction of a
 mosque in Tehran for the Sunni Kurds," MP Rahman Behmanesh told the reform-majority
 chamber Tuesday.

 Behmanesh, who represents the town of Mahabad in Iran's northwestern West Azerbaijan
 province, also called on moderate President Mohammad Khatami to designate members of the
 Kurdish minority to important political posts, notably in the government.

 On Sunday, Hassel Dasseh, another Kurdish MP representing the northwestern towns of
 Piranshah and Sardasht, also requested before parliament that Khamenei grant his community
 permission for the construction of a mosque in the Iranian capital.

 They demanded the lifting of restrictions which they say make Sunni clerics inferior to Shiite
 clerics.

 Reformist Kurdish MP Jalal Jalalizadeh in November alleged in parliament a campaign of
 repression and serial killings against the six-million-strong Kurdish minority in Iran.

 This included prohibition of religious freedom for the Sunni Muslim Kurds, in a country that has
 a Shiite Muslim majority, he said.

 Although Shiite Islam has been the state religion since the 17th century, the Sunnis account for
 about eight million of Iran's roughly 65 million people.

 Iran's Democratic Kurdistan Party was officially banned following the 1979 Islamic revolution
 which toppled the shah and brought the Shiite clergy to power, and the party's leader was
 assassinated in Vienna in 1989.

 Different Kurdish factions rebelled against the clergy after the revolution, prompting Islamic
 Iran's founder, the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, to put the revolt down by force.
--------------------------