Minister Stresses Iran’s Respect for All Religious Minorities

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian Culture and Islamic Guidance Minister Seyed Mohammad Hosseini underlined the Islamic Republic’s respect and support for the rights of all religious minorities living in Iran.

Hosseini referred to the rights of religious minorities in Iran, and added that in Iran, the religious minorities have representatives at the parliament.

He further underlined that commonalties of different religions should be identified and introduced.

Hosseini made the remarks in a meeting with followers of monotheist religions in Tehran on Saturday night, stressing that the amicable and cordial relations among the followers of monotheistic religions in Islamic Iran is one of the honors of the sacred Islamic Republic.

In relevant remarks in 2010, Vice-Speaker of the Iranian Parliament Mohammad Hassan Aboutorabi Fard had also reiterated the Islamic Republic’s respect for religious minorities, and said that minorities in Iran enjoy the same rights that Muslims have even in legislating laws for the country.

“Representatives of the religious minorities enjoy equal rights with other lawmakers in the Islamic Consultative Assembly (parliament) in Iran,” Aboutorabi Fard said in a meeting here in Tehran at the time with the Patriarch Cardinal of the Chaldean and Assyrian Catholic Church of Iraq.

He said that based on Islamic guidelines, all religious minorities in Iran are free to observe their religious duties, and they also enjoy the right to choose their own favorite MPs from among their own religious brethrens.

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