Execution and mass arrest in
Baluchistan
Balochistan Peoples Front ; 05-08-2008
Yaqoub Mehrnehad, the Baloch peaceful political activist, journalist and
writer was executed today, the fourth of August 2008 along with another
young Baluch human rights activist, Abdolreza Taheri Sadr. He was sentenced
to death some time ago. When his family was allowed to meet after that he
said that he was quite innocent and had no contact with any armed group. He
said that he campaigned for equality and Justice and if death is the price
for equality and Justice he would accept it with all his heart as accepting
tyranny is giving the tyrants the opportunity to terrorise the innocent
people.
He was also a social worker that gathered support for the people who had
lost their relatives and properties in natural calamities and earthquakes.
He was striving to provide support for those who did not have any support
from anywhere. He was 30 when he was executed. He has joined the long line
of Baluch martyrs who have chosen to have a graceful life and a dignified
death. He will go in the history of Baluchistan as a hero who did not submit
to the brutalities of the tyrants. His main crime was that he was a Sunni
and a Baluch. The Islamic regime of Iran is a Shia fundamentalist that has a
long history of persecuting of the Sunnis.
Gholamali Nekooee, the commander of the Baluchistan Security Forces
announced that 4022 Baluch have been arrested in the last five months.(1)
Another commander announced that one Baluch has been shot dead. He added
that person had a long history of armed struggle against the regime. This
commander did not identify the dead man.(2) Nekooee reported that 117,000
alien citizens were arrested and expelled from Iran. The Iranian regime has
been engaged in a policy of ethnic cleansing by expelling the Baluch people
from Iran as citizens of Pakistan or Afghanistan. Since the Baluch people in
the 3 countries wear the same clothe and speak the same language, it is easy
for the Iranian regime to continue its ethnic cleansing policy by uprooting
the original native Baluch people of Iran and sending them to Pakistan and
Afghanistan.
Another report said that 726 Baluch men and women have been arrested
recently. In another piece of news it was said that 22 Baluch have been
arrested. (3)
The news of execution of Yaqoub Mehrnehad and Taheri , the killing of
another Baluch person as a rebel, the arrest of 4022 Baluch, the arrest of
726 more Baluch men and women and the arrest of 22 more Baloch is just
frightening. Every human being with a conscience cannot see this news and
accept any legitimacy in Iranian regime. These kind of figures have been
published in Iranian media regularly but they have been ignored by human
rights organisations and Iranian opposition groups. These figures can fit in
the frame of crime against humanity. Human rights organizations, the United
Nations and political activists must be warned of such widespread crimes.
The death of Yaqoub Mehrnehad and Taheri, the peaceful political activists,
means legality and legitimacy of armed struggle in Balochistan.
Yaqoub Mehrnehad, The leader of Voice of Justice, the only civil society
organization in Baluchistan, has been condemned to death for organising a
lawful meeting between the public and the local authorities in Baluchistan.
He had official permission for holding this meeting. The local authorities,
security forces and the Governor of Baluchistan were present at the meeting.
The meeting started peacefully and ended peacefully without any disturbance.
Some members of the public raised some questions and the questions were
answered by the different local authorities. There was no violence. There
was no disturbance. There was not any other illegal activity. It was fully
in the framework of the Iranian law and constitution.
The security forces raided the office of the Voice of Justice after the end
of the meeting and arrested all the organisers including Yaqoub Mehrnehad.
Those who were arrested were tortured by police but released after few
months. Yaqoub Mehrnehad was tortured and sentenced to death. The
authorities alleged that he had contacts with Abdul Malik Rigi, the leader
of People's Resistance Movement of Iran.
Yaqoub Mehrnehad and Rigi had severe of differences over conducting
political activities. Yaqoub Mehrnehad reasoned that like all the Iranian
citizens, the Baluch had the right to engage in political and civil
activities peacefully. He argued that some of the civil campaigners in
prison were even allowed to conduct interviews with foreign media, that the
government of Iran shows some kind of flexibility for political activities.
Abdul Malik argued that they began their activities peacefully but their
members were arrested, tortured and executed. He argued that it was the lack
of opportunities for political activities that forced him and his friends to
take arms.
These arguments happened in their weblogs. They never met. They never had
direct contact.
Yaqoub Mehrnehad did not accept this argument and began his political
activities peacefully within the framework of the Iranian law and
constitution. Within a short time, he and his friends were arrested and
tortured and he was condemned to death.
Yaqoub Mehrnehad now is condemned to death and his death sentence has been
confirmed by the Supreme Court of Iran proving that Abdul Malik was right in
his arguments.
The death sentence for the civil and peaceful political campaigner, Yaqoub
Mehrnehad, proves the following points:
1. The civil campaigning and political activities are illegal and
illegitimate in Balochistan and therefore, anybody who engages in civil
campaigning and peaceful political activities can be condemned to death.
2. When civil campaigning and peaceful political activities are banned,
political activists have not any other alternative but resorting to armed
struggle.
3. The claims by Abdul Malik, the leader of People's Resistance Movement of
Iran, proved to be true when there was no opportunity for peaceful civil
campaigning armed struggle BECOMES legitimate, legal, moral and acceptable.
4. There are 100 armed groups in Baluchistan. They have always claimed that
their armed struggle is legitimate and legal as the last resort because the
Islamic Republic of Iran has not provided the right political environment
for peaceful political activities.
5. All of these groups have claimed that they began their political
activities peacefully through legal means and in the framework of the
Iranian constitution. All of them claimed that their members were arrested,
tortured and condemned to death because of the legal, peaceful and civil
campaigning.
6. All of these groups claim they resorted to armed struggle only after all
other actions were tested and considered by the Islamic Republic of Iran as
illegal and illegitimate.
7. The Baluch people and Baluch political activists and human rights
organisers have come to one shared and common conclusion: the Iranian regime
is determined to force the Baluch people to complete submission for their
complete eradication.
8. The Iranian policies towards the Baluch people are very clear: starvation
to death or migration to other countries.
9. The evidence for this claimed is rampant:
10. According to official figures of the Iranian regime, 76 percent of the
Baluch people live and poverty line. Such high level of poverty is the
result of deliberate policies of the Iranian regime for eradicating the
Baluch people through starvation. Poverty line is about 12 percent
nationally.
11. Disease is widespread in Baluchistan. The Baluch people are deliberately
denied access to acceptable health care facilities. Consequently, there are
more sick people in Baluchistan than any other part of the country.
12. Illiteracy rate in Baluchistan is the highest in the country. This is
also the consequence of the official policy of the regime to exclude the
Baluch children from formal education and consequently driving them to
poverty and starvation.
13. Famine in Baluchistan is more widespread and regular than any other part
of the country. This is the result of the government's policies of
abandoning the land without any developmental projects to create sufficient
water reservoir.
14. The deforestation of Baluchistan is moving fast and wide to transform
Baluchistan into a complete desert to force the people to starve to death or
migrate to other countries.
15. The fertile lands of Baluchistan have been confiscated and given to
agents of the Iranian regime.
In such circumstances the Baluch people are
responding to measures designed to their complete elimination.
When Baluch people saw the consequences of the regime's policies in
Baluchistan, they took the following actions:
1. Like all other citizens, they began complaining and informing the
government officials.
2. The complaints led to the arrest of the people who filed the complaints.
3. The Baluch people consulted their religious leaders and persuaded them to
see the supreme leader of Iran and inform him of the plight of the Baluch
people.
4. Their religious leaders met the supreme leader and other authorities but
no action was taken except that the religious leaders were put in very
difficult situation.
5. The educated groups began a series of lobbying, meeting different
government officials but their meetings did not bring any positive action.
6. They began to write in the Internet sites and Blogs. Consequently some of
them were arrested, tortured and hanged under the false accusation of drug
trafficking.
7. Some of the less educated people of Baluchistan began armed struggle as
they did not see any positive results coming from peaceful activities.
8. Abdul Malik Rigi began his activities as a civil campaigner and
distributed leaflets about the plight of the Baluch people. His colleagues
were arrested, tortured and executed under the usual allegation of drug
trafficking.
9. Abdul Malik Rigi concluded that the Iranian regime was determined to
completely eliminate the Baluch people through different ways and therefore,
he took farms and conducted several armed attacks on the security forces. He
became quickly popular in Baluchistan and turned into a hero and legend. The
other people of Baluchistan who witnessed his popularity followed his
strategy of armed struggle.
Now there are about 100 armed groups in Baluchistan who are campaigning to
prevent the Iranian regime from suppression, oppression, and starvation of
the Baluch people.
Conclusion
By executing of Yaqoub Mehrnehad and the arrest of his 16 years old brother,
and the arrest of more than 5000 Baloch in a short time, the regime has
proved the credibility of the claims of the Baluch people that their armed
struggle was the only strategy for preventing the Iranian regime from the
genocide of the Baluch people.
No people will sit idle and witness his own demise. According to all laws
and human rights conventions and organizations, individuals and peoples have
the right of survival and have the right of defending themselves. The Baluch
people are not an exception. They have their rights to defend themselves
like all other people. If the United States of America has the right of
invading Afghanistan and Iraq and removing their regimes for self-defense,
if Turkey has the right of attacking the Kurdish fighters for self-defense,
if other people had the right of defend themselves through out history,
Baluch people have the same right.
At the same time the Baluch people have done their best to comply with
international law. When Amnesty International published its report on Baluch
people and requested Abdul Malik Rigi to stop taking armed action against
the civil targets of the Iranian regime, he responded by stopping his armed
struggle completely. But when Amnesty International requested the Iranian
regime to stop the killing of the Baluch people, the Iranian regime did not
pay any attention to it and followed its policy of repression, oppression
and violence against Baluch people.
Keeping in mind that the Iranian regime has banned civil and peaceful
political activities in Baluchistan, the international community, human
rights organisations and democratic governments of the world must recognize
the right of the Baluch people for self-defense.
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United Nations: Its Contribution
to the Everlasting Balochistan Crisis
By Aziz Baloch ; 09-08-2008 ; http://www.articlesbase.com/international-studies-articles/
Once I travelled from Eastern Balochstan,
Pakistan to the Western part of Balochistan, Iran to offer my condolences to
a family who lost their loved one. It was a short one and half hour drive.
As soon as we reached the famous Goldsmith border line which has been drawn
back in the 19th century, Balochistan was divided among Iran, Pakistan and
Afghanistan by the British Empire’s “divide and rule” policy.
Baloch leaders have referred such border as “artificial.” In fact, these
artificial borders are very unpopular among the Baloch people due to many
decades of tyranny that has been pressed upon them. Indeed Iran and
Pakisrtan have both failed to win the hearts and minds of the Baloch people.
As soon as we cross the border I could easily see the Iranian security at
the top of the mountain, sheltered by their bunkers, their eyes were chasing
and looking for individuals fleeing or entering its borders under the gaping
sun and scorching heat. Their was a tiny village near the border, as our
vehicle entered, their were family compounds. As soon as we went inside the
house, within five minutes two Iranians security force vehicles rushed
inside the compound, they parked right next to our vehicle.
"You know how the Jews of Russia feel now. That is how I feel --- like a
slave." Says Kurdish leaders Mustafa Barzani.
As a Baloch I felt the same way because. The same security force on May 16,
2007 shot and killed an 11 year old innocent Baloch girl Roya Sarani right
front of her house as her powerless father and brothers stared with a
complete sense of helplessness. She was coming from her school exams in city
of Zahedan, Sistan-Balochistan. In Eastern Balochistan, on May 2008 city of
Dera Bugti, three innocent peasant Bugti trbe members Nazar Mohammed Bugti,
Rostam Bugti, and Jeo Bugti were burned alive to death. Such extreme acts of
brutality from the state security forces are crime against humanity.
When 28 years old Yaqoub Mehrnehad a cultural and human rights activist from
the capital city of Zahedan, Sistan-Balochistan, was arrested on May 2007 by
Iranian security forces. He was taken to an unknown location, never
explained what his crime and guilt? Neither gave him an opportunity in the
court to present his evidence to prove his innocence, he suffered some of
the worst torture in prison. Amnesty International expressed their concern
of his illegal arrest and safety.
He was the head of, “Voice of justice youth associations” which is a
non-governmental organization, his activities were purely about the
promotion of Baloch culture and education. Trying to reaching to the young
and help them in many fields of education. He was a writer and reporter for
the newspaper Mardomsalri which is based in Tehran.
On August 4, 2008 he was executed in the city of Zahedan, Balochistan, Iran.
I would say in all part of Sistan-Balochistan, Iran there is complete vacuum
of free media due to the fact that the media is control by a radical regime,
who provides biased news reports about the ground reality in
Sistan-Balochistan. Because Iranian security forces have a strong grip in
Balochistan, they are indiscriminately arresting the Baloch youth and
labeling them as a terrorists, smugglers, and as anti Islamic. Hundreds of
Baloch youth are hanged in public. Many Baloch religious leaders (Sunni
minority group) are executed and assassinated by the Iranian regime.
" The civil campaign and political activities are illegal and illegitimate
in Balochistan and therefore, anybody who engage in civil campaign peaceful
activities can condemned to death." Says Reza Hossein Borr a Baloch
intellectual’s .
Since the forceful occupation of Western Balochistan by Reza Shah Pahlavi in
1928, The dark history of aggressive polices of all Iranian regimes towards
Balochistan is not hidden. Baloch people are deprived their linguistic,
cultural, social, political, and economical rights.
“According to the official figures of Iranian regimes 76 percent of the
Baloch people live in poverty line such high level of the poverty line
result of the deliberate policies of the Iranians regimes for eradicating
the Baloch people through salvation."
Baloch people believe the United Nations can play the important role
resolving the Balochistan conflict. Their involvement will help to stop the
further genocide, aggressions, arrest, torch red, extrajudicial killing,
displacement and assassinations of Baloch leaders. If the Balochistan crisis
continues to be ignored by the world, such atrocities and aggressions will
continue by both regimes of Iran and Pakistan.
According to the international court of justice “crimes against humanity” is
explained in the article # 7
(a) Murder (b) Extermination (d) deportation or forcible transfer of
population (e) imprisonment or other severe deprivation of physical liberty
in violation of fundamental rules of international laws; (f) torture (h)
persecutions against any identifiable group or collectivity of political,
racial, national ethnic, cultural, religious, gender.... (i) enforced
disappearance of persons;"
All of the acts have been committed by the both regimes against the native
Baloch people. This is the moral duty of the United Nations to step in and
perceive both ruthless regimes to resolve the legal and legitimate demands
of the Baloch leaders.
Otherwise, the un-ending crisis in Balochistan will hardly come closer to
being resolved. The two un-democratic regimes have proven with previous
records that they will keep betraying the Baloch people and continue their
evil polices towards them. They will continue their aggressive polices and
keep depraving the Baloch by denying their economical, political,
linguistic, cultural, and religious rights . On the other hand Baloch
leaders are tired of begging for their autonomy.
You can not treat the cancer patient with the bandage, the crisis in
Balochistan is not a scratch but more a deep gash. That’s what both
theocratic and dictatorial regimes Iran and Pakistan have been doing for
many years. From the Baloch prospective Balochistan’s un-ending crisis is
reaching to a point of no return.