Minister Highlights Religious Equality in Iran

Iran’s minister of culture hailed the equality of all religious denominations in the country, an obvious sign of which he said is that many Sunni Muslim citizens have been assigned to senior posts.

The Iranian administration selects officials on the basis of meritocracy, Ali Jannati said at a unity conference, held in the southern port city of Bandar Abbas on Monday evening.

He emphasized that all religions and denominations are treated equally and enjoy equal rights in Iran.

For the first time, President Rouhani’s administration has picked an ambassador from the Sunni Muslim brothers, the minister added.

In an address to a gathering of people in Sunni-majority Kurdistan province back in July, President Hassan Rouhani stressed that the Iranian nation does not discriminate between Shiites and Sunnis.

“Shiites and Sunnis are brothers and united with one another,” he pointed out.

Majority of the 1.6 billion Muslims in the world are Sunnis. Iran’s population, in contrast to the Muslim world, has overwhelmingly more Shiites than Sunnis. Between 90 to 95 percent of the Iranians are Shiites.