Iran, 118 people executed in the last ten days: they are mainly people from Balochistan, i.e. Sunnis

ROME – At least 118 people were hanged in Iran from April 29 to May 8. Among them there are also two women. This is learned from Hands Off Cain, the international league of citizens and parliamentarians for the abolition of the death penalty in the world, a non-profit association founded in Brussels in 1993 and recognized in 2005 by the Italian Foreign Ministry as an NGO authorized for development cooperation. Every year, during the holy month of Ramadan (this year from March 22 to April 21), executions are traditionally suspended. And it is therefore “normal” that at the end of religious fasting there is a sharp increase in executions, as if lost time had to be made up for. Never before, however, had such a high level been reached: 118 executions in 10 days, almost 12 a day.

He mainly killed people of the Baluca ethnic group: Sunnis. An extraordinarily high percentage of these executions concerned men and women of the Baluca ethnic group: 24 men and 2 women. The Baluchi, or Baloch, are the predominant ethnic group living in the region of Balochistan (Baluchistan, Baluchistan), an arid region of southwestern Asia, politically divided between Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan. The inhabitants of this region are about 15 million, divided 60% between Pakistan, 25% Iran, and the remainder in Afghanistan, in the Kandahar area. They are predominantly Sunni Muslims. The most important cities of the Iranian region administratively named ‘Sistan and Baluchistan’ are Zahedan and Zabol. Although the Iranian region, which overall has about two and a half million inhabitants, is known for its wealth of minerals, gas, oil, gold and marine resources, Iranian Baluchistan remains one of the poorest and least developed provinces of Iran , whose population has in a sense a ‘tradition’ of international drug trafficking.

Baloch comparable to Kurds. From this point of view, the Baluchi are comparable to the Kurdish minorities, who are also deliberately kept in underdeveloped conditions in the region they occupy on the border between Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. The Kurds, through the ‘Kolbar’ phenomenon, practice the smuggling of goods and petroleum products (not drugs) on the mountainous paths of their region, and each year they suffer several dozen killings by the Iranian border patrols, who try to also stem them using anti-personnel mines.

Saudi Arabia is no different. The prevailing executions imposed by the justice in force in the Sunni monarchy are essentially three: crucifixion, stoning and beheading, but the latter method is undoubtedly the most applied. Saudi Arabia, despite several periodic declarations of wanting to apply moratoriums on the death penalty, in fact continues to execute convicted people, according to the laws of the shari’a: up to the whole of 2022, an average of 129 was recorded, 5 executions per year, an 82% increase over the previous period. Most of those executed are charged with murder, drug-related offences, armed robbery and incest.