Unrest in Iran Spreads to Remote, Restive Provinces
At least 19 people were killed in Iran on Friday during antigovernment protests in a southeastern province that is home to a restive ethnic minority, as unrest spread to remote regions of the country in a new challenge to the ruling Islamic establishment.
Antigovernment protests erupted in Zahedan, the capital of Sistan-Baluchistan, one of the largest and poorest of Iran’s 31 provinces, according to video posted on social media and local news reports. Men are seen walking toward a police station and shots being fired in one video, which was posted online and confirmed as authentic by Storyful, which is owned by
News Corp,
the parent company of The Wall Street Journal.
Armed men attacked local police stations in the area, state media reported, adding that at least 19 people had died, including a senior intelligence officer.
The unrest in Sistan-Baluchistan, which had been relatively quiet as protests over the rights of women and wider state repression broke out across the country in the past two weeks, opens a new front for the government as it tries to brutally suppress the movement.
There were also reports of protests in Ahvaz, the provincial capital of oil-rich Khuzestan, with some social media video showing demonstrators calling for “death to the oppressor,” cars honking and women taking off their veils. State media didn’t immediately report on the Ahvaz protests.
More than 40 people have been killed, more than 500 injured and more than 1,000 arrested in a sweeping crackdown since protests broke out following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini on Sept. 16 in police custody for allegedly violating the country’s strict Islamic dress code.
Photos: Who is Mahsa Amini?
Iranian security forces have used tear gas and live ammunition to break the demonstrations, while some protesters have violently clashed with them. Amnesty International, a rights group, on Friday said it had acquired leaked official documents that show Tehran had instructed its security forces across the country to “severely confront” the protesters.
Sistan-Baluchistan is in Iran’s southeast, bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan, where a majority of the country’s more than 2 million Baloch live. Khuzestan is in the country’s southwest, on the border with Iraq and home to most of Iran’s more than 1.5 million Arabs.
Demonstrations have continued to spread across Iran in the weeks after the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody, despite growing calls for restraint.
Photo:
Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Like the Kurds, another ethnic group in Iran, the Baloch and Arabs also seek an end to government discrimination and neglect and more autonomy for their region. Separatist groups representing these minorities have regularly clashed with security forces.
Saeid Golkar,
an authority on Iran’s security services who teaches at the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga, said the expansion of the protests to border regions inhabited by minorities was logical as the word of protests in the center was slowed by internet shutdowns and as the government focused its crackdown on Tehran.
“People in the provinces feel they have more opportunity to come out to protests because special forces are concentrated in Tehran,” he said.
In an attempt to contain the unrest, authorities on Friday sent security forces to crack down on the protesters in these provinces and heavily disrupted internet access there. Authorities have restricted access to the internet in other parts of Iran as well and tightened blocks on social-media networks on which the protesters have relied to express dissent and rally support.
The government abruptly disrupted mobile internet access in Sistan-Baluchistan and Khuzestan Friday afternoon, according to the Internet Outage Detection and Analysis project at Georgia Tech, which tracks internet access all over the world.
But protesters in Khuzestan responded by resorting to leaflets to organize demonstrations, according to pictures posted on social media.
A supermarket in Zahedan, allegedly owned by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, was set on fire, according to videos posted online and confirmed as authentic by Storyful.
In an attempt to contain the unrest, Iranian authorities on Friday sent security forces to crack down on the protesters in the country’s restive provinces.
Photo:
Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Write to Benoit Faucon at [email protected]
Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
At least 19 people were killed in Iran on Friday during antigovernment protests in a southeastern province that is home to a restive ethnic minority, as unrest spread to remote regions of the country in a new challenge to the ruling Islamic establishment.
Antigovernment protests erupted in Zahedan, the capital of Sistan-Baluchistan, one of the largest and poorest of Iran’s 31 provinces, according to video posted on social media and local news reports. Men are seen walking toward a police station and shots being fired in one video, which was posted online and confirmed as authentic by Storyful, which is owned by
News Corp,
the parent company of The Wall Street Journal.
Armed men attacked local police stations in the area, state media reported, adding that at least 19 people had died, including a senior intelligence officer.
The unrest in Sistan-Baluchistan, which had been relatively quiet as protests over the rights of women and wider state repression broke out across the country in the past two weeks, opens a new front for the government as it tries to brutally suppress the movement.
There were also reports of protests in Ahvaz, the provincial capital of oil-rich Khuzestan, with some social media video showing demonstrators calling for “death to the oppressor,” cars honking and women taking off their veils. State media didn’t immediately report on the Ahvaz protests.
More than 40 people have been killed, more than 500 injured and more than 1,000 arrested in a sweeping crackdown since protests broke out following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini on Sept. 16 in police custody for allegedly violating the country’s strict Islamic dress code.
Photos: Who is Mahsa Amini?
Iranian security forces have used tear gas and live ammunition to break the demonstrations, while some protesters have violently clashed with them. Amnesty International, a rights group, on Friday said it had acquired leaked official documents that show Tehran had instructed its security forces across the country to “severely confront” the protesters.
Sistan-Baluchistan is in Iran’s southeast, bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan, where a majority of the country’s more than 2 million Baloch live. Khuzestan is in the country’s southwest, on the border with Iraq and home to most of Iran’s more than 1.5 million Arabs.
Demonstrations have continued to spread across Iran in the weeks after the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody, despite growing calls for restraint.
Photo:
Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Like the Kurds, another ethnic group in Iran, the Baloch and Arabs also seek an end to government discrimination and neglect and more autonomy for their region. Separatist groups representing these minorities have regularly clashed with security forces.
Saeid Golkar,
an authority on Iran’s security services who teaches at the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga, said the expansion of the protests to border regions inhabited by minorities was logical as the word of protests in the center was slowed by internet shutdowns and as the government focused its crackdown on Tehran.
“People in the provinces feel they have more opportunity to come out to protests because special forces are concentrated in Tehran,” he said.
In an attempt to contain the unrest, authorities on Friday sent security forces to crack down on the protesters in these provinces and heavily disrupted internet access there. Authorities have restricted access to the internet in other parts of Iran as well and tightened blocks on social-media networks on which the protesters have relied to express dissent and rally support.
The government abruptly disrupted mobile internet access in Sistan-Baluchistan and Khuzestan Friday afternoon, according to the Internet Outage Detection and Analysis project at Georgia Tech, which tracks internet access all over the world.
But protesters in Khuzestan responded by resorting to leaflets to organize demonstrations, according to pictures posted on social media.
A supermarket in Zahedan, allegedly owned by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, was set on fire, according to videos posted online and confirmed as authentic by Storyful.
In an attempt to contain the unrest, Iranian authorities on Friday sent security forces to crack down on the protesters in the country’s restive provinces.
Photo:
Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Write to Benoit Faucon at [email protected]
Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
