Apr 08, 2009

Speech, Seria Dadiar


The following speech made by Seria Dadiar is entitled, "Persistent Human Rights Violations by the Iranian Regime in Balochistan”.


For a PDF copy of the speech, please click here.


Ladies, gentlemen, and distinguished members of the European Parliament, I would like to express our heartfelt thanks and profound gratitude. We appreciate the opportunity to express to you the grim reality people in Balochistan face under the current theocratic regime in Iran.

As the Iran people were preparing themselves for the New Year and Baloch people were embracing spring on their own traditional way, Iranian regime continued its persistent human right violation in Balochistan.  To give you an estimate how regime persistently violate human right in Balochistan, I give a count it during last month, March 2009.

-          4 Baloch were hanged in Zahidan on 9th of March 2009, the official state news agency IRNA reported on Monday. They were accused of kidnapping and murder.

-          On the 6th of March a young man, Behzad, was killed by security forces indiscriminate firing he died on the spot in bullets fired by security forces. After the Death he was labeled as a drug smuggler.

-          Two religious workers, Molavi Khalik Zardkoi, Salaudin Gowramzahi, were executed on charge of cooperation with People Resistance Movement 3rd March, he was arrested on 16 June 2008, in Naseer Abad Village.

-          March 4 2009, Baloch were killed according Isna the official student news, the name of people killed were not given.

The suppression of the Baloch in Iran is manifold.  One of the grim faces of suppression is physical insecurity, which is manifested by the continued execution of Baloch youth and this has become an almost daily occurrence in Iran.
 

Demolition of Baloch people’s homes without compensation

Another face of this discrimination is the demolition of the homes of poor Baloch, in various areas of Balochistan, in order to make place for the government’s systematic policy of bringing non Baloch into the region in a deliberate effort to change the demographic of Balochistan thus making the Baloch a minority in their historical homeland.

 
Suppression of Civil Society

Suppression of the civil society and non governmental organizations in Balochistan, as in other parts of Iran, is an integral policy of the current regime. The latest victim was Voice of Justice.  Its leaders were arrested and two of them, Mr. Yaghob Mehrnihad and Abdul Nasser, were executed after imprisonment and torture.  Some of the leaders are still in prison.  One of the present imprisoned is Mr. Ibrahim Mehrnihad, the younger brother of Mr. Yaghob Mehrnihad who was executed. Ibrahim Mehrnihad spent his eighteenth birthday in prison and he has been sentenced to five years in prison for giving information to the media about his brother and other prisoners.


Suppression of Sunni Religious Activist

After the suppression of civil society, the regime has increased its attacks on religious workers. Two religious workers were executed on the 9th of April 2008. Two other were executed on 3rd March 2009; Hundreds of other religious activists have been arrested and are still in prison.


In the last two years two mosques and religious schools were destroyed and religious worker arrested.  "Abu Hanifa Mosque," in Azimabad a suburb of the city of Zabol, was attacked and demolished on the 27th of August 2008 and its students and staff were arrested. On the 27th of October 2007, another mosque in the same district was attacked and destroyed by associates of the Revolutionary Guard in the Zabol area of Balochistan. The mosque was closed and its Imam, Hafez Mohammad Ali Shahbkhsh was arrested. Two other religious activist by the names salaudin and Goramzahi were executed on second March, They had been arrested last year after the regime attacked a religious school on 16 June 2008.

 
All these suppressive actions are an indication that the Baloch people are struggling to achieve their cultural and national right. The Baloch people in Iran consider the situation unbearable and they are trying to make changes in the political power to accommodate their aspiration for self rule and shared sovereignty.


While international community is concerned mostly with the regimes nuclear issue, and its support for terrorism abroad, regime is using this confrontation to suppress civil society, other oppositional group especially among non dominant nationalities. This oppressive policy is even implemented harsher in Balochistan. As it has been reported by amnesty International:


 In 1998 the commander of the Mersad garrison reportedly said, “"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.”"[1]


It is time that international community reacts to these kinds of abuse of human right and use of unnecessary violence against a national Baloch people in Iran.

 
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 and other minorities in Iran who continue to see their basic human rights violated;

 
   2. call upon the Tehran authorities to immediately investigate the extrajudicial killings of civilian Baloch and other minorities living in Iran; and to take immediate measures to ensure that the enforced displacement of the Baloch people is halted.

 
Seria Dadiar

2nd April 2009

[1] http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/MDE13/104/2007/en/dom-MDE131042007en.html