19 KILLED IN ZAHEDAN ONE OF IRAN’S DEADLIEST CLASHES SINCE PROTESTS BEGAN

Sat 01 October 2022:

Iranian protesters and police had a violent confrontation in southeastern Iran, that killed 19 people in one of the deadliest incidents since antigovernment protests began sweeping Iran two weeks ago.

The confrontation happened as worshippers from Iran’s Sunni minority left Friday prayers at the Makki Grand Mosque in Zahedan, capital of Sistan and Baluchestan province.

Iranian state media described the protesters as terrorists and separatists and accused them of also firing weapons at police.

Sistan and Baluchestan province in recent years has seen occasional confrontations between Iranian security forces and armed groups including antigovernment Baluch rebels and gangs engaged in smuggling across Iran’s borders with neighboring Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Iranian state news agency IRNA quoted Sistan and Baluchestan provincial governor Hossein Modarres Khiabani as saying 19 people were killed and 20 wounded in the confrontation, including police.

Another semiofficial news agency, Tasnim, said one of those killed was the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps intelligence commander of Sistan and Baluchestan province, Seyyed Ali Mousavi.

The Baluch activists’ campaign group reported that 58 people had died and more than 270 people had been injured in clashes in the south-eastern city, the capital of Sistan and Baluchistan province.

Social media reports suggest that protests had started as crowds gathered for Friday prayers led by Molavi Abdolhamid at the Makki Jameh mosque.

The local Halvash news agency reported that the protest had spread throughout Zahedan. Several government buildings in Zahedan were set alight. The agency said military helicopters were used to attempt to disperse the crowds. Security forces fired at the protesters from the air.

The Sunni cleric in Iran, sometimes critical of the government, confirmed reports last Friday about the rape of a 15-year-old girl in June by Colonel Ebrahim Khouchakzai, the commander of the police in the city of Chabahar.

The protests began in Tehran and spread nationwide days later in response to the death in police custody of 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini.

Iranian morality police detained her for allegedly wearing her hijab too loosely as she visited Tehran on Sept. 13. She fell into a coma at a police station and died in a hospital three days later, prompting accusations from family members that she had been beaten. Authorities denied mistreatment and said without evidence that she died of a heart attack.

In the past two weeks, Iranian authorities and rights activists have reported the killings of dozens of people including some security personnel as the government cracks down violently on mostly peaceful nationwide protests.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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