West Balochistan: Baloch Prisoners in Iran Suffer Severe Human Rights Violations
Severe systematic human rights violations are taking place in West-Balochistan, Iran.
Below is an article published by Balochistan Peoples Party:
The unexpected victory of Mr Ahamadinejad in the controversial presidential election in Iran led to massive and popular protests and demonstrations. The response of the government was crackdown and massive arrests of protesters and opposition politicians. Many of the detainees have been imprisoned for months without having any access to attorneys. They have been tortured, raped and forced to confess publicly in the state-controlled mass media.
This wide spread unlawful violation of the human rights of the prisoners has been noted by the United Nations Human Rights Council as well as other human rights organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and …. which have raised serious concerns about the systematic abuse of human rights of the prisoners by the Iranian security and judicial authorities.
Iran has a well known record of violating human rights and getting forced confessions under harsh and inhuman tortures.
The human rights situation of prisoners in the province of Balochistan where the prisoners are tortured to death without having access to legal assistance or access to their families before execution is even worse and beyond of one can imagine. Latest last week a Baloch tribal chief was executed who had been made blind due to tortures in the prison. On Tuesday February 23rd the Iranian government announced the arrest of Abdul Malek Rigi, head of “Jondollah” organization.
Mr. Rigi was shown while being taken out of a plane and later on, the ministry of intelligence announced that Mr. Rigi had been captured aboard a foreign airliner which had been forced by Iranian war planes to land in the Iranian territory. The minister also said that they were expecting massive confessions by Rigi which clearly indicates that the minister had already planned barbaric tortures and forced confessions and TV shows on the state-run TV and media. These forced confessions are then used in the court against the prisoner to convict them. According to some news agencies Mr. Rigi has already made some confessions on TV.
Balochistan Peoples Party (BPP) in several occasions has warned the International Community about the systematic violation of the basic human rights of Baloch prisoners in Iran. As for other Baloch prisoners we are also concerned about violation of the human rights of Mr. Rigi as a prisoner. Due to importance of the case of Mr. Rigi, we believe that the prosecution and hearings of Mr. Rigi’s court should be performed openly with access to defense attorneys (preferably neutral and foreign lawyers), and an independent and neutral jury. We also believe that the hearings should be overseen by representatives from the International Community, United Nations Human Rights Commission, the Amnesty International, the Human Rights watch and other human rights organizations.
