Three political prisoners were executed on Tuesday at Zahedan prison in Iran’s southeastern Sistan-Baluchistan province, which has a majority Sunni population.
Mizan News Agency affiliated with Iran’s notorious Judiciary made the announcement, as it has executed more than 100 inmates in the past one month.
The condemned political prisoners were charged with alleged “membership and collaboration with Jaish ul-Adl, receiving military training, transporting and concealing bomb-making materials, as well as participating in two bombing operations in Zahedan, an unsuccessful bombing in Zabol county, and two bombing operations in Zahedan’s police station.”
Jaish ul-Adl, a Sunni Islamist armed group, operates predominantly in southeastern Iran, where a significant Sunni Baluchi population resides, and the border with Pakistan is porous.
The detainees, apprehended by security forces in September 2020, underwent months of interrogation before being transferred to Zahedan prison.
Last Saturday, another political prisoner was also executed after enduring 12 years of imprisonment in the same facility.
Jaish ul-Adl promptly responded to the executions, characterizing them as “a sign of the weakness and incompetence of the regime of the Supreme Leader in confronting the movement of the people of Baluchestan for the realization of their legitimate rights,” as stated on its Telegram channel and website.
In a parallel development, the Oslo-based Human Rights Organization of Iran released a report on Tuesday, documenting 114 executions in the country since the commencement of the conflict in Gaza. Of these, 24 were Baluch citizens, five of whom were sentenced to death for collaborating with armed groups opposing the Islamic Republic.
The 2022 execution statistics for Iran reveal that the Sistan-Baluchestan holds the highest per capita execution rate in the country, with 39 executions per one million people.
