March 2007 Report on Human Rights in Balochistan
 

BACKGROUND

The Balochistan Peoples Party (BPP) is a Liberal Democratic Party, struggling to achieve sovereignty for the Baloch people within a Federal Democratic Republic in Iran. More than three million Baloch living in Iran are being treated as third class citizens, on account of not being part of the ruling, ethnically Persian, Shi’a sect of Islam. Under the previous monarchist and the current Islamic regimes of Iran, the Baloch people have been deprived of cultural, social, economic and other fundamental human rights.


Some significant consequences of the Iranian regimes exclusivist policies are:

1. The use of the Balochi language is forbidden in public places and Baloch children are deprived of using their mother tongue as the medium of instruction at schools. The Iranian government does not allow any kind of press freedom in Balochistan

2. Ethnicity and religion are systematically and practically used as barriers to Baloch students entering into higher education systems. The policy of keeping the Baloch backward has resulted in the lack of job opportunities and the impoverishment of the entire population. The high-ranking authorities in Balochistan are Shi'a and non-Baloch including the majority of ordinary governmental officers and clerks employed from the other parts of Iran and brought into Balochistan.

3. Successive Iranian governments have been engaged in demographic manipulation to systematically reduce the Baloch people to a minority in their own homeland. Furthermore, among the many repressive policies is the destruction of the homes of poor Baloch people in Balochistan and their displacement. This is done in order to provide the best located land to the non-Baloch, specifically the Security Forces which are brought in from other parts of Iran, to carry out the regime’s segregationalist policies. Government policy is based on facilitating easy access to non-Baloch people to purchase land at a cheap price and set up businesses.

The current situation: the regime’s atrocities in Balochistan

The policies of the Iranian Government in Balochistan are characterised by gross human rights abuses. They have distorted the political, economical and cultural development of Balochistan and insulted the human dignity of Baloch people. Some specific cases of human right violation and repressive policies of Iranian regimes are outlined here.

Disappearance cases

In the recent months the Iranian regime’s security and intelligence forces have started kidnapping teenagers and young men even their location is not revealed to their families.
As incidents have increased many families searching for their kidnapped sons have forced some of the regime-controlled news agencies to admit that recently many Baloch have been arrested in Zahidan, Zaboul, Khash Iranshahr, Cahbhar and many other places in Balochistan.

Increased military presence

In recent years the regime has increased its oppressive forces in Balochistan by establishing more military bases, like Rasoul Akram and Fathee. Each has more than 32,000 personnels. These are new bases in addition to the previous ones including the Mersad Group bases. Towards the end of 2006 and early 2007, it was obvious that the transfer of oppressive regime forces in Balochistan was complete and they were ready to attack Baloch people and punish them collectively for their rejection of religious, ethnic domination and hegemony.

Extra-judicial killings

The intensity of the Baloch resistance movement in the last two years forced the regime’s revolutionary court in Decembers 2006 in Zahidan to admit, that the politically based security problems were increasing in Balochistan. The subsequent suppression of the Baloch people in Iran increased in 2007. The Iranian regime has turned all Iran into a killing field for the Baloch people with the elimination of young Balochs as a priority on all fronts. Hanging, execution and sniper killings are all increasing against young Baloch men and women. Various intelligence, security forces, paramilitary, army and Revolutionary Guard Corps and are being used in an undeclared war against Baloch people in an organised effort to empty Balochistan of its educated sons and daughters.

Disruption of legitimate political and cultural activities and arrests of social and cultural activists in Balochistan by the Iranian regime. Sedaye Edalat is a youth organisation in Balochistan that is registered and working legally within Iranian law. On 27 April a group of six Baloch intellectuals led by Mr. Yaqoob Mehrnehad, who are all members of Sedaye Edalat, met with the authorities of the province to discuss issues related to various aspects of national discrimination and political oppression of the Baloch people. At the end of the meeting all of these individuals were kidnapped by the Intelligence agency (Etilahaat). This clearly demonstrates that this regime does not tolerate any kind of activity by Baloch cultural and social workers. For several months after Yaqoob Mehrnehad’s arrest no one was permitted to visit him. Only recently a visit by family members was permitted but it was only brief and very much controlled. We just recently heard, after torture and an unfair trial conducted behind closed doors Mr. Yaghub Mehrnehad, aged 28, has been sentenced to death for an unknown offence.

Suppression of Sunni religious activists and destruction of Sunni Mosques in Iran

The Iranian regime is creating religious tension to justify its increasing suppression of the Sunni Balochs and other oppressed nationalities and religious minorities in an effort to further destabilise the region. Examples include;

• Thursday 8 November 2007, an ethnic Sunni Baloch cleric, Kuda Baxsh Eslaamdust, an Imam from the port city of Chabahar in Balochistan was arrested by Etilahaat (the intelligence services) and until now his whereabouts remains unknown.

• 27 October 2007, associates of the Revolutionary Guard attacked a Sunni mosque in the Zabol area of Balochistan. The Mosque is now closed and its Imam, Hafez Mohammad Ali Shahbkhsh has been arrested.

• 30th October again a Sunni Mosque in Jawadiyee area of Bojnord was destroyed by the security forces.

Targeting of Sunni religious activists

The Sunni population of Iran, including those within the dominant Persian ethnic population, is under severe pressure from this regime. As a result of the leadership to the Sunni population of Iran in Balochistan province, especially the Balochs are under constant pressure through direct attacks, the arrest of Sunni religious figures and the closing down and destruction of mosques. The regime is trying to mobilise the Shiite extremists to increase the suppression of religious minorities.

Further, we have received reports that religious activists in other Sunni dominated regions of Iran including Iranian Kurdistan have been arrested and their whereabouts are unknown.

Death patrols

The activities of the Regime security forces have been seen in a different and deadly form in Balochistan including death patrols, sniper shootings and public hanging. Prisoners are often tortured beyond recognition before hanging or execution. The regime uses various methods to torture. In recent years it has been using a particular method involving electric drilling of the bodies.

Death patrols; “We have not been given orders to arrest and hand over those who carry weapons”
“On the basis of a directive we have received, we will execute any bandits, wherever we capture them”. These were the words of the Mersad commander as he was quoted in an Iranian newspaper in 1998.
The death patrols were started mostly by a group called Mersad which means ambush, which operates under direct order of Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamanei and this group is only active in Baloch areas.

What differentiates this group from others is its license to kill. They choose their victims randomly, creating a sense of insecurity in Balochistan, especially among young men.
For this group, the whole of Balochistan has become a hunting ground and in the recent months it has been responsible for many shootings and beatings in Balochistan.

The commander of the Mersad garrison reportedly said that 2005 –2006 was the peak of this group’s activities. However in 2007 the Mersad strategy of death patrol and killing people randomly was adapted by other forces. In particular the Iranian security forces have been using it extensively in recent months.

The security forces, besides operating their permanent and temporary check points, will also lie in wait and ambush people, passing car and motor cycles which results in further deaths.

The most recent tragic incident, which took more than 20 lives, was caused by security forces firing at a car driving towards Zahidan Balochistan provincial capital, from Mirjave near the Pakistan’s border.
Security forces lying in ambush fired at a car, as result of which the driver lost control. The following car crashed to it causing a series of accident in which several cars caught fire and burned. More than 20 people died. This incident was covered up by security forces and was not reported in the media.

Death vans of the various intelligence services, security forces and Revolutionary Guard Corps, which have the adopted Mersad group’s tactics are going around Balochistan harassing, intimidating beating and arresting people and randomly punishing Baloch people collectively.

The identities of the people that have been killed by these death vans patrols are not announced or published although the security forces headquarters in Zahidan briefs the regime-controlled news agencies and announces the death figures in those raids against Baloch people.

• On the 26th of December 17 Baloch were hanged without a proper trial in Zahidan prisons, allegedly charged with rebellion and drug trafficking. In this case the regime did not announce the names of the hanged persons but this massacre was reported in this weblogs.

• In addition Mohammad Ghafar, a member of the Revolutionary Guard group and the commander of security forces at the Fathee base, said in an interview with Iranian news agencies on the 26th of May that 4 more people had been killed in Balochistan charged with rebellion and drug trafficking.

• On the 16 April the deputy commander of Rasoul Akram military base in Zahidan in an interview with the official news agency of regime said that 6 people have been killed by security forces in different areas of Balochistan.

• In another tragic incident on 16th May a 12 years old girl Sarani was shot and killed after the car which her brother was driving was stopped by security Forces (Nirohayee Entizami ). Her brother had picked her up from school, and she was killed in front of her family home before his Father’s eyes. Her family under pressure from security forces could not make any charges against perpetrator.


Transfer of Baloch political prisoner to other provinces for hanging as a means of covering up extra-judicial executions.

On 15th February 2007 the commander of Fathee Military Base in Zahidan said that 65 people had been arrested in connection with an explosion in Zahidan the previous day.
After the explosion different agencies of the security forces, the intelligence agency and the Revolutionary Guard Mersad Group arrested more than 1000 people.
Later Shriyari, the representative of Zahidan in the Iran’s assembly, said in an interview with the Ayaran weekly that more 700 hundred had been given death sentence and are waiting for the execution.
These young Baloch men who have been arrested without any charge are being taken to different cities and provinces of Iran for public execution by hanging.

Public hangings are often organised as public entertainment and at the hanging, the regime gathers crowds of supporters which shouts and take photos.

Recently examples

• Amnesty International wrote on 5 September, ‘At least four of the executions today, in Shiraz, were carried out in public, although the UN Human Rights Committee has stated: "Public executions are...incompatible with human dignity." At least two of those executed in Shiraz appeared to have belonged to Iran's Baluchi minority.

• Amnesty International is concerned that members of Iran's Baluchi minority have formed a significant proportion of those executed in Iran’.

• On 2 December Attaullah Pullzahi was hanged accused of drug trafficking without trial in Qom.

• On 1 September Omar Bamary and Mohammad Bamary where hanged in public in Mahan a district in Kerman province, they were charged with drug trafficking and carrying gun and rebelling against regime.

• On 13 June two other Baloch that had been arrested before and charged with out trail for being members of a Peoples Resistance Movement, were hanged in public for allegedly drug trafficking and rebelling against the state, without trial in Karaj.

• The tortured body of Wahid Mirbalochzahi, a 23 years old Baloch cultural activist, was found buried in a ditch on 13 June 2007. He was arrested after an incident in Zahidan, where a bus carryings members of Iran’s dreaded of the Revolutionary Guard was blown up in February 2007. Wahid’s home was near the incident area, and he had simply gone out to check what had happened after he heard the bomb blast. He never returned home and his family and friends searched but could not find him. Eventually they were informed that he had been arrested. His family was kept in dark, and not informed were he was kept, until his body which had been tortured by drilling was found buried in ditch.

• Said Ghanbarzahi, a 17 years old Baloch teenager was executed allegedly charged with rebellion against government and cooperation with Peoples Resistance Forces. He was not given a trial.

• He was also tortured, using drilling, among other methods.

• On the 14th March 2007 N. Shanbehzahi was hanged in public, in Zahidan, five days after his arrest. He was charged with being a member of the Peoples Resistance Movement. Signs of torture were evident in his face and body, having also suffered the special torture that regime uses particularly on the Baloch young men of drilling their body. His execution was also performed as an entertainment ceremony where supporter of the regimes, shouted slogans, and waved their hands in triumph as yet again they succeeded in silencing a young Balochs life by hanging.

The Balochistan Peoples Party condemns these oppressive policies and appeals to human rights organisations and the international community to bring international pressure to bear on the Iranian religious regime, to stop harassing, intimidating, arresting and killing of opposition activists.

ACTION REQUESTED

Based on the above, and on behalf of the Baloch people in Iran, BPP urges you to;

1. Raise with the Tehran authorities the issue of the current critical situation of the Baloch people in Iran who continue to suffer the denial of basic human rights;

2. Call upon the Tehran authorities to immediately investigate the extrajudicial killings of civilian Baloch persons living in Iran;


Nasser Boladai
Spokesperson for Balochistan People's Party
Nasser.Boladai@BalochPeople.org