Iran steps up hangings in restive province

Iran Focus: Tehran, Iran, Nov. 02 – More than half a dozen people have been hanged in Iran’s south-eastern province of Sistan-va-Baluchestan, were anti-government sentiment is high, since the start of the week. Iran Focus

Tehran, Iran, Nov. 02 – More than half a dozen people have been hanged in Iran’s south-eastern province of Sistan-va-Baluchestan, were anti-government sentiment is high, since the start of the week.

The semi-official daily Jomhouri Islami reported on Thursday that two “troublemakers” accused of being Mofsed-o-fel-Arz (meaning corruptors of society, whose blood can be spilled) were hanged in the provincial capital Zahedan.

The two men, identified as Hadi Daryakesh Naroui and Azizollah Najjarian, were hanged in public on Wednesday.

Daryakesh was accused of kidnapping, shooting, and spreading fear in society, while Najjarian was accused of drug trafficking.

On Wednesday, the hard-line daily reported that six men were hanged in public in Zahedan for “instigating trouble”.

The report stated that three “trouble-makers” were hanged in front of a crowd of several thousand people Monday morning. The men, identified as Mohsen Sargolzaee, Nader Kaharzehi, and Maijd Kaharzehi, were charged with kidnapping, shooting, and spreading fear in society and declared to be Mofsed-o-fel-Arz.

The same report said that another three men, identified as Behzad Naroui, Mohammad Amin Hormozi, and Abdollah Sheikh Hassani, were hanged in public in Zahedan Monday afternoon.

They were accused of being “mohareb”, a religious term that describes someone who wages war on God. An Islamic court found them guilty of killing three agents of Iran’s State Security Forces (SSF), the paramilitary police, attacking security outposts, and carrying out a bombing in Zahedan.

The three men were also accused of membership in an armed Baluchi group calling itself Jondollah.

In March, the group claimed responsibility for an armed attack on a convoy of government officials in Sistan-va-Baluchestan, which left twenty-two government and provincial officials dead and at least seven, including the governor of Zahedan, critically wounded.

In April, Iran’s state-run media reported that security forces had killed the group’s leader Abdolmalek Reigi along with 11 of its members on the border with Afghanistan.

The claim proved to be false after Reigi subsequently appeared on an Arabic-language satellite channel denying such rumours.

The group claims that it does not target civilians.

Sistan-va-Baluchestan has been a hotbed of anti-government activities since 2005.

In recent months, Iranian authorities have stepped up executions in the restive province in what many Baluchis believe is a response to a spate of attacks by dissidents on government and security officials.